


Hamish

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Gen, M/M, Parentlock, Repost from my FFN
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-29 20:38:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 32,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3909850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hamish William Holmes-Watson is normal by no one's standards. </p><p>((Kind of a sequel to Deus Ex Machina, but can be read without.))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Age 0: Adoption

**Author's Note:**

> So what I'm doing with this story is I'm going to make one chapter for each year of Hamish's life, up to age 15. Why am I stopping there? You'll find out. :) Enjoy!
> 
> Also, I still mostly like this story, despite how old it is! Hooray!!

They had been married for nearly a year when the Doctor first broached the subject of adoption.

The question took them both aback. They hadn't really discussed the possibility of kids amongst themselves; both assuming the other didn't want them. And anyways, their hectic lifestyle was hardly a proper environment in which to raise a child.

John was quick to point this out to the Doctor. "You've seen the state of our flat. You've seen the body parts in the fridge, the experiments on the table. We can't possibly take care of a kid when we're running off to grisly crime scenes every other minute!"

"That's what you _think,"_ the Doctor responded. "What do you _want?"_

But at that point Lestrade called with an urgent case and they had to dash away.

The question was forgotten in the rush of adrenaline surrounding the investigation, but it began to niggle at John in the nighttime. He was never losing sleep, necessarily (whatever little sleep he got, with their erratic schedules), but he would contemplate it before drifting off or when waking up in the morning.

_What do I want? I've always thought and, yes, anticipated I'd grow up to have children, but then, I'd thought I'd grow up and marry a woman. With Sherlock…I don't know what to think._

He sighed and turned over. Sherlock made a little snuffly noise beside him. _Sherlock. Sherlock would never want kids. He can barely tolerate adults as it is, how would he cope with little children with a fraction of their intelligence? It'll never work. Baker Street is the worst place for children._

John rationalized this as his answer and allowed it to recede into the back of his mind. It went with an odd feeling of dejection.

Life passed as usual. Cases were solved. Criminals were apprehended. The occasional off-planet jaunt lightened the mood. The Doctor continued to be the only person, aside from John, Sherlock would socialize with. He took great pleasure in their long, broadening talks of quantum physics and the mechanics of timespace.

It was after a particularly grueling case – John was still sore from falling out that window, and Sherlock had broken his wrist – that Sherlock had decided John needed an impromptu date at Angelo's. Aside from Mrs. Hudson, the restaurant owner had had the most ecstatic reaction when the two had announced their relationship, and delighted in placing a single candle on the table as soon as they came in.

As they had just finished a case, Sherlock did not object to eating. His appetite had become a bit better since returning from his Absence, as they referred to it, half-starved and mentally and physically exhausted. John suspected he wasn't really hungry for a good portion of what he ate, but it was his way of apologizing for faking his death for two years. _I'm so sorry I worried you, I'll do my best to never cause you to worry again._ Not that Sherlock would ever say this out loud, of course.

The bell jingled noisily as a man and a little girl entered the restaurant. The girl was skipping happily, pulling the man along to the counter. "Ice cream, Daddy, you said we could get ice cream!"

The man laughed at the girl's eagerness. "I did say that, I also said you had to eat supper first, remember?"

"Ummmm," said the girl, pulling an exaggerated thinking face, "no. I think you probably said I could have as much ice cream as I want."

"I think I didn't."

"I think you did."

John felt himself grinning as he watched the two. Wouldn't it be nice…

_Nice to what?_

_Maybe…I don't know…_

A sudden, unbidden image burst into his mind. Him and Sherlock, holding the hands of a small dark-haired boy. The boy was grinning up at them, John was laughing, and Sherlock had a look of pride on his face similar to the one that appeared whenever John made an intelligent deduction of his own.

_I do…I do want kids._

Involuntarily, he glanced over at Sherlock. His brow was furrowed, thinking, and he radiated annoyance.

John's smile dropped abruptly. _But we simply can't have them._

However, the Doctor's next visit resulted in a rather unexpected turn of events.

Seated comfortably in his armchair, John listened appreciatively as the Doctor recounted his latest adventure. Of course, the Doctor, who was physically unable to sit still for a period of more than five seconds at a time, was waving his arms overdramatically about and leaping onto the couch whenever they reached a good part in the story. He would occasionally lapse into a different language John tentatively identified as German, at which point Sherlock would lean forward intently and absorb a private addition to the tale. John didn't mind. He was rather certain he wouldn't have understood it had it been in English, either.

" – when Roma shows up with the TARDIS and says that the rusalka was Maelin all along! So we took Maelin – poor thing – back to Kavité and Roma decided to stay with her." The Doctor slipped on the arm of the sofa and fell heavily into its cushioned softness, legs flailing lankily. "Say, John! Have you decided what you _want?"_

John's voice stumbled over the syllables, completely unprepared. "Have I – what?"

"Decided. You know. About adopting."

"I haven't really – _thought_ about it much, I mean – "

"Oh, tell the _truth!_ Saves us all time."

John stopped and closed his eyes, marshaling his thoughts.

"Doctor – listen. While I think it would be nice to adopt sometime, we simply can't. It would never work. Just…221B isn't a good place for kids. Kids who need caring, and attention, and a nice, stable environment to grow up in. And…and Sherlock won't ever want kids. Which is okay. It really doesn't matter. So I think it's time you dropped the subject."

The Doctor was silent for a while before asking quietly, "Sherlock? Do you want children?"

Sherlock, who had been staring with his arms curled around his legs, blushed wordlessly and buried his head in his knees.

John was speechless. He crossed over to Sherlock's chair and gingerly placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm – I'm sorry, Sherlock, how long have you…"

"For a rather long time actually," came the muffled reply.

"Well…why didn't you tell me? I felt the same, I just assumed…"

"Because _logically,"_ the detective shot back, head whipping up, "it's completely foolish! Do you have any idea how vulnerable this child would be to kidnapping, assassination, blackmail? It's for the best that the only people we are close to are capable of defending themselves, which entirely rules out any possibility of children in the future! And besides," his head drooped, temporary fury exhausted, "I'd make a terrible parent. You as good as said so yourself."

"Something I've found," interjected the Doctor softly, "is that those who doubt their own parenting skills have a higher chance of being improbably brilliant at it."

"How so."

"Well, you'll treat the baby as human, won't you? And not fall into that stereotypical realm of goo-goo-ga-ga baby talk. For a child of yours…I'd say that's a definite advantage."

"Yes, well, the question is still moot, isn't it?" John pointed out. "Like Sherlock said, this hypothetical kid wouldn't last a week without being kidnapped twice and held for ransom. I don't suppose you've got some magic solution you can just pull out of that box of yours?"

The Doctor mentally winced at how clichéd this was going to sound. "Actually, yes, I do."

"What – so, you're telling me, you've got a way of taking a human baby and making it – what? Invincible?"

"Well." The Doctor licked his lips. "If you're not opposed to having an extremely…remarkable child…there's a species called the Tenza. They are a species of alien with no home world. Instead, baby Tenza drift through space, looking for a couple that for whatever reason cannot have children. They then adapt their DNA to match that of their host family or species. Like a cuckoo bird, but they don't push the other chicks out of the nest, because there weren't any to push to begin with."

Sherlock leaned forward. "An alien?"

"Technically, yes. But, see, they mold their DNA so it's human. There are only two major differences between a human-Tenza and a real human; otherwise they're nearly indistinguishable. One, the Tenza will have some sort of tic – an irrational fear, a learning disorder, an odd physical behavior. And second – they always possess some form of strong psychic power."

"So – they'd be able to defend themself?" John supposed.

"Correct!" The Doctor bounced excitedly. "Now normally, a Tenza expends a huge amount of its power on altering the memories of its family to prevent either of them from realizing its identity, because it would cause chaos and one thing a Tenza fears horribly is losing the ones that love and protect it. But imagine – if one could be allowed to grow up _as a Tenza,_ to be accepted for what it was, with its strangeness and brilliance and blossoming powers, to be taught to control them and use them, which most struggle with immensely – just _imagine!"_

"That would be…incredible," mused John.

"Now, it won't be easy," the Doctor cautioned. "Tenza are more likely to experience things like severe existential crises, depression, perfectionism, separation anxiety…sometimes they lose control of their abilities and someone gets hurt. It's sort of dangerous, living with a Tenza…but I think you could handle it. In fact, it's probably better than traditional adoption, for you. What do you want?"

_"Yes!"_ exclaimed Sherlock, leaping from his chair. "A thousand times yes, _yes, YES!_ That is," he turned to John hurriedly, "if you want to?"

His partner could only grin with wordless joy. "When?"

*********************

John was awoken by a press of soft lips against his own. "John!" exclaimed Sherlock, and kissed him again. "John, wake up!" Kiss. "John, wake up, it's today!" Kiss, kiss.

His eyes blinked open. "I'm awake, you know."

"I know." Sherlock grinned. "Your breathing changed. Also, you started reciprocating. But I wanted to keep kissing you."

John grabbed Sherlock by the shoulders and pinned him to the bed in a long, deep kiss. "It's finally today. I can't believe it."

"Finally," Sherlock echoed.

"What time is it?"

"Two hours and forty-two minutes until we meet Hamish."

"Hamish William," corrected John.

"Hamish William Holmes-Watson. It's got a lovely ring to it, don't you think?" His voice shook ever so slightly.

John noticed this and pulled Sherlock into a crushing embrace. The detective was trembling against him. "Nervous?"

"Terrified."

"Me too."

Sherlock breathed out, slow and faintly unsteady. "So…Hamish William. He'll be genetically ours…"

"Have to be a boy, because the Tenza will combine our DNA," John continued.

Sherlock looked worried. "The Doctor said they haven't tried this before, with two males. What if something – "

"Shh, love." John soothingly stroked the side of Sherlock's face. "We said we wanted a remarkable child. And we will love him whatever form that remarkableness takes."

Sherlock smiled. "Let's take him to cases. Only the nonviolent ones, though. Like thefts."

"And no chasing criminals."

"Until he's at least three."

"The Doctor will stop by for weekly lessons in controlling his…whatever happens…"

"That's the part I'm most nervous about!" Sherlock burst out suddenly. "I don't understand psychic ability! It can't, by Earth physics, exist! I'm terrified this thinking will drag me into being a horrible parent! I'm terrified the temptation to _know_ will plague me and plague me until I'm driven to _experiment_ on him, I'm terrified he'll become just a lab rat to me and…John, have you read _Carrie_?! I don't want that to happen in real life!"

"Sherlock. Hey, Sherlock." John placed a calming hand under Sherlock's chin and tilted the tearstreaked face up to meet his eyes. "It won't. We don't believe the power is wrong. We're fascinated by it. You'll learn about it as Hamish learns about it. In a few years, it won't be this big mystery. It'll be everyday. And listen. I have faith in you. You won't be heartless. You know how I know that?"

Sherlock blinked.

"You're crying. You're so upset and afraid that you'll be some sort of unfeeling Dr. Frankenstein that you're _crying._ That isn't the mark of a monster, is it? And I've only seen you cry twice before now. You'll be brilliant, you hear me? Brilliant."

"Th-thank you."

Sherlock buried his face in John's chest. His breathing slowed to a hypnotizing tempo, and John could feel himself relaxing into the other man. They drifted into a peaceful, somnolent half-doze.

Until the silence was finally shattered by an unearthly, clanking wail that rent through the serenity like a bullet through glass.

John's eyes snapped open and he looked down at Sherlock, who gazed back with bright, shimmering eyes and wildly dilated pupils.

"He's here," Sherlock breathed. He violently threw off the covers and leaped out of bed. "He's here!" They scrambled out of the room, tripping over each other in an attempt to reach the source of the noise.

"Helllooo!" the Doctor beamed as they arrived in the kitchen, breathless and euphoric. "Ready to leave?"

"Let's go, let's _go!_ " Sherlock demanded, bouncing up and down like an overexcited 5-year-old. (Which, John reflected with a grin, he sometimes was.) "Of course we're ready, let's _go!_ "

"You're still in your pyjamas."

"Oh, _sod_ it all, does it _matter?_ "

"Were you even awake?"

_"Does it matter?"_

The Doctor laughed. "No, I suppose not today. Come on!"

And so they boarded the TARDIS. The Doctor pulled out his psychic paper and sonicked it, causing the texture to momentarily distort into a glimmering, plasma-like substance. "You two, put your fingers on here. It'll scan your DNA and send the data out to space along with an invitation for a Tenza to respond. Once one chooses you, it'll return the signal along with its coordinates so we can go pick it up. Here you are…" He held out the glowing paper and they tentatively pressed their fingers to its surface.

There was a brief flash of light, and Sherlock gasped faintly as he felt an ethereal tugging at his fingertip. Oilslick iridescence raced frenetically across the paper. A tinny voice of greeting smiled in his head and broke away.

"There we go," the Doctor said appreciatively. "Did you feel that? That was Hamish saying hi."

"That was – " John marveled, "I sort of – felt a little happy blob, in my chest – "

"You're lucky. Most Tenza families will never remember when their child first chose them. He should be sending me the coordinates any…" The paper's light suddenly doused and complex, interlocking circular designs bloomed across it.

The Doctor smiled. "Gallifreyan. You've got a smart one, Holmes-Watsons."

He whirled to the console and began drawing the circles with his finger on one of the many screens. "You can follow this, old girl. It's simple, right?"

The TARDIS wheezed to life happily and hardly quaked at all. The Doctor grinned and patted it encouragingly. "See? Easy."

A tense, restless silence permeated the room as they traveled. John stood by the door, bouncing nervously on his toes. Sherlock perched on the railing and swung his bare feet back and forth, glancing around but never settling his gaze.

"Are you ready for this?" he asked.

"I hope so."

"I think we are."

"Mmhm. Doctor, how long…?"

"Depends on when she wants to get there, but she's excited too so I'd say…" A small, vibrant chiming emanated from the controls. "…Now, in fact."

Sherlock's stomach jolted. He hopped off the railing and trotted quickly over to John, taking his face and kissing him briefly. John ran his fingers over Sherlock's arm before ending the kiss, squeezing his shoulder reassuringly.

"All right. You can go ahead and open the doors now," the Doctor called from the console. "Put your hands out – be ready to catch him as he forms."

_As he forms?_ Sherlock frowned, suppressing another surge of anxiety, but tentatively opened the doors to reveal a stunning, starry canvas. He swallowed – it wasn't technically a _height,_ but it still made him uneasy – and, along with John, held out his hands.

A vortex of revolving, indigo not-quite-light peeled away from the empty space and swirled viscously above their outstretched palms. Sherlock could feel it prodding, _tasting_ at his DNA. His eyes unconsciously rebelled at something so alien and beautiful and he was forced to turn away – it hurt to look at. But he could feel it solidifying gently into a tiny, fragile form, feel a round, precious bulb growing against his whispered the word. _"Hamish."_

In unspoken unison, they brought their son back into the TARDIS. Sherlock's long, delicate fingers cupped his head, already sporting a few wispy black curls. Crystalline sapphire eyes blinked open as Hamish got his first glimpse of the strange universe around him.

"He's got your eyes," Sherlock murmured.

"Look, though. He'll grow up to have your hair."

Sherlock blinked a few more times than strictly necessary. "He's…amazing."

"Do…do you want to hold him?"

John was entrusting him with care of this tiny, momentous human being? _Him?_ spark in those eyes. He hadn't seen this _spark_ in anyone – not Lestrade, not any of the police force, not Mrs. Hudson, not even John. Wait –

Moriarty. There had been a spark in his eyes, of course. But that was – twisted, more of a blaze of madness – he had seen this spark somewhere! But where… _the Doctor._

The Doctor's eyes sparked with wisdom, with understanding, raw intelligence, caring and love. And so did this baby's.

Hamish _saw._

And Hamish smiled.


	2. Age 1: Obvious

Hamish had been with them for a year, and almost nothing about him yet spoke of abnormality. He was growing at a healthy rate, although he did eat and sleep more than most babies, and hardly ever cried. He hadn't yet mastered the art of walking but seemed to take great pride in his ability to pull himself around by holding on to furniture. Despite John and Sherlock's constant observation, he had yet to show signs of any supernatural talents.

The strangest thing about him, and this could just have been his personality, was that he refused to make any sort of noise around other people. With the Doctor, John, or Sherlock he was a regular chatterbox, a fount of gibberish that had yet to transition into any real words. He held elaborate "conversations," trying out new blends of syllables while appearing to really listen to what the other person was saying. However, when Mrs. Hudson watched him while her boys went out to solve a murder, or when he was strapped into John's baby carrier leaning over a crime scene, tiny brow furrowed, he was completely silent.

In Sherlock's opinion, it didn't help that the Yard were fixated on the child. After their initial shock and disbelief at seeing young Hamish completely at ease around ominous police tape and grim-faced officers, they had promptly moved to viewing Hamish as some sort of mascot and cooing and giggling at the baby in their midst. Sally Donovan had once tried to tickle him innocently under the chin. Hamish bit her.

"Watch this, would you? Let me know if it turns blue," Sherlock said, placing a petri dish of clear liquid on Hamish's high chair tray. He turned back to the chemical-stained kitchen table and carefully dropped a fragment of sulfur into a beaker full of faintly sizzling experiment.

There was a flash of light and yellow smoke billowed voluminously forth, causing Hamish's miniature safety goggles to fog up and sending him into a fit of giggles. "Daaugl sabey _uu_ di flloooofff abaglle smeyyy!"

"Precisely," agreed Sherlock, coughing and attempting to wave the smoke away with his hands. "Let's keep this between ourselves, shall we? No need for your dad to know."

"No need for me to know what, exactly?" came John's voice from the stairwell.

Sherlock froze. "Back from the store early, John?"

"Bagfo mdaa sorrlee," Hamish murmured.

"Lestrade called, there's been a theft. Somebody's stolen a blue carbuncle from some French actress who's come up to London to film. What have you two been up to? If you've wrecked the kitchen again…"

"No! Nothing like that, no need to come in!" Sherlock frantically tried to clear the air, but the smoke hung in corners almost solidly and the smell of rotten eggs pervaded the flat. Hamish grinned and kicked his feet. "Baaoooo."

"Fascinating, I quite concur."

The baby's smile dropped. _"Nnnna. Boooo."_

Sherlock looked over. "Oh! Blue. Thank you, Hamish." He whirled around and scooped up the petri dish, careful not to spill the azure liquid on his hands.

John chose this moment to come through the door, arms laden with shopping bags. He took in the smoke, the abandoned experiment which had started bubbling over unobtrusively, and the lanky consulting detective standing immobile in the middle of the kitchen with the face of a schoolboy who's been caught placing a stinkbomb in the teacher's desk. He said nothing, only sighed and leveled a glare at Sherlock. After a moment of contorting his face, Hamish succeeded in replicating this glare.

John smirked at the boy scowling with such cherubic consternation. "We'll take care of this when we get back. Find the carrier, I'll get Hamish ready." He eased the baby out of his chair, lifting the goggles over his head and ruffling his short black curls.

Noticing a flash of pale, John leaned forward and frowned with confusion. The roots of Hamish's hair had turned light. He had heard of babies that changed their hair color as they grew – was Hamish going to end up sandy blond, like him?

"Coming, John?" Sherlock called.

"Yeah, 'course," John replied, and helped Sherlock buckle the baby into the carrier.

One short cab ride later, they arrived at the scene. Hamish tried out his new glare on anyone who approached. If Madame Morcar was disconcerted by the brusque detective with the baby strapped to his chest, she did a remarkable job of not showing it.

After briefly poking around Madame Morcar's hotel room, muttering to Hamish, who on occasion stood in for John/the skull, Sherlock straightened up and began rattling off his deductions.

"Obviously it could have only been stolen between the time frame of last Thursday and Sunday, and by someone who the hotel owners know but doesn't work here, or – ahah! The chief security guard has a twin! Or at least a brother close enough in appearance. You're looking for a James Ryder, visiting from Dublin but planning to return soon, decided to steal the jewel – what's funny, John?"

Hamish had a deep look of concentration on his face, determinedly mouthing the words as Sherlock said them. John covered his smirk. "Nothing. Continue."

"As I was saying, Ryder is most likely a kleptomaniac, but his brother is unaware of this. You'd best hurry up and catch him – he leaves England before tomorrow."

The Yard, of course, were used to these displays of genius, but this one was rather over the top, even for them. Anderson closed his mouth. "How – how did you – "

"Oh, you _can't_ be serious, Anderson, even you could figure this one out. It's – "

Hamish's voice suddenly rang out, clear and distinct. _"Obvious!"_

There was a moment of absolute, stunned silence.

Then John began to giggle. It started small, but soon he was doubled over with laughter. Lestrade started chuckling, and the crime scene was quickly overcome with hysterics. Hamish perched in the middle of it all, beaming proudly at his chaos.

"He ever done that before?" gasped Lestrade, wiping a tear from his eye.

"Nooo, never!" giggled John, who had laughed so hard he had to sit down. "Think he wanted to make a performance of it!"

"Hamish, how long have you known how to do that, exactly?" Sherlock grinned.

Hamish kicked his feet, overcome with joy that his plan had gone correctly. "Obvious."


	3. Age 2: Pressure

The first time Hamish was kidnapped, he was two years old.

The Holmes-Watsons had done a frankly remarkable job of protecting him for the first years of his life. They kept strict tabs on him – they let him explore and wander, of course, but not without knowing where he was at all times. Sherlock had, in all seriousness, explained to him why what they were doing was necessary, and Hamish had understood. It was quickly becoming apparent that he knew much more than he let on.

But they had slipped up – just once, that was all it took – and now Hamish was gone.

And both John and Sherlock were on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

It had been two days since they had returned from a case at half past three in the morning, to find Mrs. Hudson dozing in John's chair and no toddler to be seen. The kidnappers had left a simple, generic note in their wake. _We have your child. Do not involve the police. Do not attempt to find us. We will know. Wait to be contacted._

And so, because it was possible that the kidnappers were bluffing and had no way of knowing whether or not they had gone to the police, but Hamish's safety was too important to risk, they did nothing.

Well, not nothing. Sherlock had run himself raw analyzing and overanalyzing that note, poring over it at the kitchen table for hours, but there were no clues to be found. It could have been typed and printed from any computer, no fingerprints, no watermark, no distinguishing features whatsoever, but for its message of earthshattering terror on the front. John's unspoken role was to fend off concerned queries and invitations to cases with the excuse that Hamish was sick, probably contagious, and that he and Sherlock might have caught it as well, so best stay away. Neither of them had left the flat. Sherlock had not eaten or slept at all. John may have. He wasn't sure.

It was nearing midnight on the second day when John stopped pacing – a recently acquired hobby of his – and entered the kitchen to find Sherlock slumped over at the table, fast asleep, face pressed into the kidnappers' note. He crossed the room and placed a comforting hand on Sherlock's shoulder.

The detective jerked awake. "What?! What's happening?! Hamish?! John, what happened!?"

"Nothing. Nothing's happened." He rubbed Sherlock's shoulder soothingly. "Calm down."

Sherlock's impeccable, dignified façade was falling apart. His curls were scruffy, his purple shirt was rumpled and askew, and he had acquired dark bags under his eyes. John knew he didn't look much better.

He moved his hands to grip Sherlock's upper arms, gently pulling him into a standing position, where he leaned forward, wrapped his arms around the detective's lanky form and buried his head in his chest. "We'll find him," he murmured, feeling Sherlock's arms reach up to encircle him from behind. "We'll get him back."

"But – but what if we – "

"Stop!" John's voice cracked and he felt a wet spot forming beneath him on Sherlock's shirt. "We will. We have to."

Another day passed with no word from the kidnappers. John had fallen into a kind of sleepless torpor on the couch. Sherlock continued to work feverishly, fueled by a horrible realization that if something happened to Hamish, it would be his fault, because he hadn't done enough, hadn't done a good job looking after him, hadn't found the criminals _(you call yourself a detective you can't even track down your own child's kidnappers)_ , he had failed, he had failed –

Sherlock shook himself out of his daze of fear and self-loathing to find the paper sample at which he'd been staring unseeingly dotted with tears. He angrily wiped at his face and returned to work.

John knew what Sherlock was going through wasn't healthy. If he kept pushing himself like this, it would reach the point where he truly couldn't make any more progress on finding out who had taken Hamish – and that might trigger a nervous breakdown. He seemed to believe that it was his fault Hamish was gone, and was working himself so hard as a combination of anxiety, stress and self-punishment. With an immense amount of willpower, he forced himself to his feet, ready to shake his husband out of this destructive state of mind before it was too late.

Suddenly a deafening crash arosefrom the kitchen as Sherlock's chair clattered to the floor. _"John!"_ he called, voice high and desperate.

Adrenaline sizzled through John's system as he bolted over to him. Sherlock had had the laptop open beside him, just in case Hamish's captors decided to contact them that way, was it possible that –

_Yes it was. Oh Hamish…_

Sherlock was staring, shaking and white, at a video feed of surprising quality depicting a man with a ski mask and a large knife. The man wasn't what John's attention was drawn and fixed to, though. Little Hamish – _their_ Hamish – was taking up most of the left half of the picture, tied securely to a nondescript wooden chair, dwarfed by its adult-sized back. His deep blue eyes were blinking fast and his small fists were clenching and unclenching. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it and pressed his lips together.

"Hamish," Sherlock breathed. John wondered how he could manage to speak at all.

"Yes, as you may have noticed, I have your son," the kidnapper rumbled cheerfully. "I expect you know how this will go. You'll do exactly as I say, or…" He brandished the knife and grinned. "Let's just say it won't be fun for your little guy here."

_"If you dare touch a single hair on his head – !"_ John roared, finding his voice all of a sudden. Hamish flinched and whimpered.

"Dad, it's _wrong – "_

John froze. Now that he could talk, Hamish always finished sentences properly. "What's wrong?"

"Shut it, you," said the kidnapper.

"No, my head, in my head, it – _ah –"_

"What's wrong with your head?" Sherlock's worried voice swelled with anger. _"What have you done to him?!"_

"Nothing, I swear, I don't know what he's trying to pull!"

Hamish's breath was coming in short gasps, and his eyes were squinted shut. "He's not trying to _pull_ anything!" Sherlock exclaimed. "Can't you see there's something _really wrong!"_

"Hamish, you know I'm a doctor. What exactly is happening to your head?" John asked levelly.

"It's – there's _pushing_ –" Hamish struggled for words. "In my head, there's _pushing, out_ – and it's getting _hot_ – "

This wasn't working. His head _hurt_. It had started hurting as soon as he had woken up. He had noticed he couldn't move and it smelled like damp. And the ache had started. Between his eyes. It was bad. And heat was growing and – why couldn't it leave? It was messing with his mind. He couldn't find words. And it was hard to talk. He wanted to curl up and make tiny whimpering noises until it went away.

But.

He.

Couldn't.

And the pushing – the – the _pressure_ , the word emerged fuzzily from the throbbing recesses of his mind – wanted out. Wanted out badly. It would burn through his skull, wouldn't it?

He tried to convey this to his parents. _Father. Dad_. He couldn't quite pronounce _father_ yet. Dad was doing his best. But he was an alien. Not human doctor couldn't. Where did that come from? That was no sentence. He tried to tell them. Nothing came out.

They were saying something. He couldn't hear. His pressure was not letting him.

The kidnapper was confused. Good for him.

Did humans have this pressure?

No. Dad was confused. He would have known. So it must be an alien thing.

_Tenza._

_It's my head._

_It's my head._

_My head._

_So I can do what I want._

_Because it's my head._

_I want it out._

Hamish thought about pushing the pressure. He could. It was in his head. There were no rules in his head.

He forced a hole through the pushing.

There was a dull _boom_ , nearly drowned out by the colossal roaring in Hamish's ears as all the pressure exploded out of him in a rush. His vision blurred. The kidnapper was gone. So was the computer that his dads were on. And the pressure. The heat too. That was nice.

His head was clear.

He giggled.

(It was kind of funny. He had just made that big kidnapper, the scary one, he had made him scared…and gone. Bye-bye! As the idiots (a word he learned from Father) said when pretending he was a normal baby.)

Hamish blinked a few times. He was tired. More than tired, he could barely…keep…his eyes…

And half an hour later, after the Holmes-Watsons had lost the video feed in a blur of explosion, after they panicked and called Mycroft and after he managed to track the signal to one of the many abandoned warehouses flanking the Thames, after a police force burst in prepared to face a whole horde of kidnappers, that's how they found him. Sleeping peacefully, his head resting on his chest, and the solitary kidnapper through two walls and covered in second-degree burns.


	4. Age 3: Psyke

_Vuuooorrp – vuooorp – vuuoooorrrpp –_

One lovely spring day, the TARDIS materialized in the kitchen of 221B. The wind swirling around it blew case notes off the crowded table and caused the test tubes and beakers to clink and rattle.

Hamish's book dropped to the floor and he scurried to the kitchen before the TARDIS fully solidified. _"Doctor!"_

"Hel- _lo_ , Hamish!" The Doctor laughed as Hamish wrapped his small arms around his legs in a hug. The boy was quite fond of physical contact, but only if he initiated it. Otherwise he was liable to bite.

"Today is April 10th. You were here a week ago, and I can read!" Hamish exclaimed excitedly.

"You can read?! When did that happen?" the Doctor responded playfully, ruffling Hamish's thick curly hair. The blond roots had grown out and now the first inch or so was fair – the rest was still jet-black. It made for an interesting contrast.

"I first started being able to three months ago, when I was still two. But I wasn't very good at it, so I waited to tell you. And I don't like reading out loud. But I can do it in my head."

"Must be pretty fun in there."

"Yeah, I have a castle. It's small. It's not as big as Father's palace."

"Well, you're three. It'll grow."

"Morning, Doctor," said John, poking his head into the kitchen. "Sherlock's solving the White case at the moment, so he's unavailable to the world."

"I see." The Doctor's voice lowered suddenly. "Say, have you made any progress on...you know… the organization?"

"No. The kidnapper used 'we' pronouns but he was the only one, so it's more likely that he's part of an organization, but he might be bluffing, we don't know. How were your travels?"

"Oh, lovely, they were fine. Now, what's this I hear about your son reading?"

John smiled down at Hamish. "That's how we woke up yesterday morning. He climbed his way up into our bed, said that he had been able to for a while, and asked if we'd like for him to prove it. Then he read out a page of _Treasure Island_."

"I don't like reading out loud," Hamish reiterated.

"Perfectly fine. I can do it much faster in my head," said the Doctor. "What books do you like to read?"

"Um, I like pirate books…and books that tell you how something works…and Father's case notes. I don't understand those sometimes, but they're the most fun."

"I'll bet they are. How's your psyke going?"

"It's good! It's really good! Come here, watch." Hamish pulled the Doctor impatiently to the living room and plopped himself down in front of a large, green picture book entitled _Our Brains._

After the rescue six months ago, 221B had started to seem haunted. Lamps flew, clutter danced, and the skull had ended up on top of the refrigerator. It was soon determined that this was no ghost, but instead their Tenza.

Hamish's abilities had suddenly manifested in the form of powerful psychokinesis – nicknamed "psyke" to be easier on the little boy's untrained vocal cords. The Doctor stopped by for weekly lessons in controlling the psyke and teaching him how best to use it. Despite this, they had in no way reached the intensity of the power demonstrated in the warehouse on the Thames, nor had Hamish ever managed to produce heat or fire.

"Tenza abilities grow when they're in danger or under pressure," the Doctor had assured him. "It's perfectly normal. Just concentrate on controlling it, and the power you can use at will is only going to increase."

And he was right. What had once been sporadic, slightly menacing, occasionally dangerous instances of flying household objects gradually became a small but impressive display of perfectly controlled psychic power, growing every day.

Hamish stared at the detailed yet cartoonish diagram of a brain on the front cover of the book. His fingers dug into his knees as he concentrated fiercely. The book rose a few feet above the ground, cracked open, and turned to a page describing sleep cycles.

"This is where I was before you came," Hamish announced proudly, setting the book down. "I wasn't holding it with my psyke though."

"Now _that_ is _impressive_ ," said the Doctor appreciatively. "I've got an idea. What if you put your hands in a different position, one that you're more comfortable with? It helps some psychokinetics to move their hands as they use their power."

Hamish considered for a moment, shifted his glance to Sherlock, lying prone on the couch, and placed his hands together under his chin. The book rose much more readily into the air.

John stifled a laugh. Hamish maneuvered the book over to the couch and dropped it on Sherlock's stomach.

"Look, Father," he said as John and the Doctor dissolved helplessly into giggles. He levitated the book into the air as Sherlock sat up and smirked at his hand position. "The thinking-hands help me think too!"

Thus followed an entertaining half-hour or so of Hamish chasing people with the book and occasionally other household objects, giggling maniacally from his stationary seat on the couch, only to be cut short by a loud growling issuing from his stomach.

The book flopped limply to the floor and Billy the skull returned to his usual perch as Hamish was overtaken by a huge yawn. "I'm _huuuunnnngry_." He swayed sleepily.

The Doctor swooped forward and caught the Tenza, who seemed unable to remain standing on his own. "Psychokinesis will do that to your energy levels."

"Daddy said I had a fast metabolism," Hamish murmured.

"Yep, and it'll only get faster the more you use psyke. Protein, that's what you need, and something sweet to replenish that blood sugar…I know just the thing…"

Five minutes later, Hamish had been introduced to the wonders of fish fingers and custard.


	5. Age 4: Stories

"Go ahead and climb into bed, Hamish, we'll be up to tuck you in in a minute."

Hamish nodded and padded out of the kitchen and up the stairs to his bedroom. It was painted a light blue that somehow matched the color of his favorite footie pyjamas. He wasn't quite sure how this had happened, as the paint was some years older than the PJs. The Doctor was probably involved, which was usually the case.

He selected a book and scrambled into bed, shoving a path through the piles of toys, books and stuffed animals heaped upon it. He located Cassie Bee, who doubled as a pillow, and his Aslan quickly, but Little Smaug the Tremendous had hidden in the bottom of a towering pile of stuffed toys and wouldn't come out without taking the whole heap with him. Hamish found Little Smaug's tail and pulled, very gingerly, with psyke until four muffled thumps indicated collateral damage and the plush dragon was free.

He peeked over the edge of the bed to inspect the casualties. Charles Wallace, That One, Flea and Blue had all suffered falls. Oh well. They could stay. He was too tired to move them up.

Hamish was quite possibly the only four-year-old in London that enjoyed bedtime. He also slept easily and hardly ever had nightmares, despite the three kidnappings he had experienced within the past few years. He was starting to become annoyed with them. Next time he would convince his captors that the place they were keeping him was haunted. Wouldn't that be fun.

There were three main reasons why Hamish liked bedtime. One was that he was simply more tired more often than other children. Using psyke burned a lot of energy, so Hamish required more food and sleep to function. He ate approximately half again as much as other toddlers and required at least eleven hours of sleep a night.

The second was his haven (he had found the word in one of Dad's books). It meant a quiet, peaceful place where he could be, and it also meant his bedroom. He practiced psyke here, mostly with stuffed animals, and liked to pile all of them on top of him before he went to sleep. His closest friends and allies were his Aslan, who protected him from orcs and white witches and helped him focus his psyke, Cassie Bee, who he talked to for hours on end and was brilliantly snuggly, and Little Smaug the Tremendous, whose pointy bits were great for chewing.

Hamish heard Father's footsteps on the stairs and smiled.

And then there were stories.

Father entered the room, kicked off his shoes, and took up his customary place at the end of Hamish's bed, knees up and back resting against the backboard. He smiled at Hamish, who wriggled impatiently.

"Good evening, Hamish. What shall we discuss tonight?"

Hamish's brain flickered excitedly over the possibilities – _observation, deduction, challenging books, intelligence, science_ – for less than a second before settling on a choice. "A story. Tell me one of your stories."

"Double stories for you tonight, then? Let me think…" Father placed his hands together briefly under his chin. "Here we go.

"This takes place quite a few years ago, before Dad and I are together. And, it's been a while since anything really good has come up to do, so I'm going utterly mad. So I check the website. Nothing. Except, one little girl's rabbit's gone missing. This rabbit, christened 'Bluebell,' was reported to be _glowing – 'like a fairy_ ,' according to little Kirsty – shortly before its mysterious disappearance."

Hamish giggled. "Like a _fairy?_ Those aren't on Earth. Most of the time."

"Yes, but I highly doubt she was as seasoned a space traveler as you. Now remember that; ridiculous as it may seem, it's important."

Hamish nodded. "Rabbit, Bluebell, glowing."

"Excellent. As it happens, just in time to deliver me from my slow, agonizing descent into madness, the doorbell rings. And this, my dear Hamish, is where it gets interesting.

"This client's name is Henry Knight. Obviously just come up to London, and in a hurry. His father was murdered twenty years ago, at Dartmoor, which also happens to be the location of Baskerville. That's a top-secret biological and chemical weapons laboratory. Lovely place. I'll take you sometime, if Mycroft allows it."

"I'll remember to put it on my birthday list."

"Do that. Back to the story. According to Mr. Knight, his father was murdered in Dewer's Hollow, that's a sort of local landmark. He describes his father's attacker as 'huge, coal-black, with glowing red eyes,' any deductions?"

"Um, a big dog? Or a wolf, or what if– genetic experiment! Loose from Baskerville?"

Father smiled. "My thoughts exactly. Anyway, on the advice of his therapist, our Mr. Knight had returned to Dewer's Hollow, to 'confront his demons' or some such psychological gibberish, just the night before his flight to London – "

Hamish sat bolt upright with the force of a new revelation. "That's why he'd come here now, after 20 years! Something happened – something that made him think – he hadn't made it up, the hound, because that's what the therapist will have said – and of course he can't go to her, nobody would take him seriously – _except – !"_

Father bounced to his knees, leaning forward and beaming ecstatically, caught up in the thrill of sharing his deductions. "Brilliant! Fantastic! That is _precisely_ what happened! What do you think it was, that he found out there on the moor? What could be concrete enough to warrant a visit to London, but not concrete enough to provide infallible proof to the monster's existence, thus rendering our services unnecessary? Will you walk me through your thought process? Just for fun."

Hamish closed his eyes. "Um…Not a body, or a live monster, that would be too simple. And not a vision, only sight with no other signs, or a howling or other noise, those would be taken as hallucinations. Taste, touch and smell evidence – "

"Gustatory, tactile, olfactory," Father interjected quietly.

"Thanks. Those are unlikely. If he had met another person who had met the beast, they would have probably accompanied him to London, or he at least would have mentioned them. So, I think some sort of physical evidence – maybe tracks, tufts of hair, blood?"

"Right little genius you are. I'll leave you with his parting words, shall I? It's getting late."

"Oh, but _Father – "_

"This is what he saw, and I quote. He said, 'Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a _gigantic hound.'"_ Father slid off the bed and to his feet. "Now, what's wrong with that sentence? I'll let you puzzle it over. Goodnight, Hamish."

He was halfway out the door before Hamish shouted out. "Wait!"

Father's head cocked back around. "Yes? You have a theory?"

Hamish frowned in thought. "Nobody uses the word 'hound' anymore…"

Father gave an enigmatic half-smile and closed the door.

Hamish fell back on his bed, mind humming. Half-formed, wordless ideas and possibilities fluttered in and out of his line of consciousness. _What if – why – hound – therapist – murder – accident? – if he – 20 years – train –_ His heartbeat increased as he ran faster and faster through his mind castle, no, flew, pulling new information and old disguised as new and new formed by old and mixtures of both to him like a magnet – _file: Dewer's Hollow – file: Genetics – file: Security – slow down – slow down –_

It was useless. His mind was being deluged with ideas, unstoppably, irrepressibly, exhilaratingly. He needed to ride the flow like a wave, let it carry him along to the solution, or at least as close as he could get with the information he had, he was floating, he was _flying – oh dear –_

The sudden dimness in the room brought Hamish's attention quickly back to the outside world. Dad had flicked off the light, and now the powder-blue walls were lit only by the soft, yellow glow of the bedside lamp.

"Hey," said Dad softly. "You still awake?"

Hamish opened his eyes and used a bit of his manic energy to float _Prince Caspian_ up into Dad's hands. "My brain won't calm down."

Dad took the book and sat next to him on the bed. "Can I help with that?"

"Do the voices," Hamish urged, gathering his Aslan, Cassie Bee, and Little Smaug the Tremendous into his arms. "We're on Chapter 14."

"Right." Dad cleared his throat before beginning. "Chapter 14: How All were Very Busy."

Hamish closed his eyes and snuggled his face into Cassie Bee, letting the words wash over him. Father's stories stimulated and exercised his brain, stretching his small deductive muscles and forcing him to think. But Dad's stories…with Dad's stories he was at Hogwarts, in Middle Earth, in Narnia, anywhere he chose. He could feel his mind begin to settle into the soothing rhythm of Dad's voice, feel the overwhelming torrent of information flow away and settle itself gently into a deep corner of the castle (which looked a bit like Cair Paravel), ready to spring forth when it was needed, and not before. b

And that is the third reason Hamish William Holmes-Watson loved bedtime.


	6. Age 5: Alouette

_Do we really need this much jam?_

Sherlock's nose wrinkled as he eyed the list in his hand. One strawberry, one blackcurrant, one of your choice, one for experimentation if necessary. He didn't want to choose a jam. Jam was arbitrary. If Hamish were here, he'd choose something new and exotic, and save Sherlock the tedium. But Sherlock had entrusted Hamish with the (admittedly, far more important) task of following John around the store with a secret list of experiment components to put in the cart when John wasn't looking. Hamish, for some reason, was more adept at this than Sherlock, and much better at talking John out of replacing the items if caught. Sherlock huffed with impatience and ran his fingers over the store's unreasonably immense selection of jam. Eventually he settled on a simple gooseberry.

Footsteps in the aisle behind him, slowing to a stop. He tensed slightly, hoping this wouldn't lead to social interaction. Going to the store in the first place was bad enough.

"Sherlock! Fancy meeting you here!"

Sherlock almost dropped the jam, just to spite the universe. He knew that voice.

"Doctor Graber," he said levelly, turning around with his best glare-that-wasn't-quite-glary-enough-to-be-socially-unnacceptable. "Long time, no see."

"Eight years, hasn't it been?" The man offered Sherlock a toothy grin and a warm handshake, neither of which Sherlock appreciated. "My, time does fly, doesn't it? How have you been, then? Keeping busy, I hope? Taking your meds?"

"If I recall correctly, you are no longer being paid for your services as therapist."

"Hey, buddy, I just want to know how you're doing. Have you gotten over that 'detective' phase yet?"

Sherlock no longer cared whether it was socially acceptable and glared with a passion.

"Come on, Sherlock, it's just small talk. There's no need to behave like that. If you can't learn to talk to people, how do you ever expect to get a girlfriend?"

That was nearly the last straw. Anger bubbled darkly inside him, making him feel sick to his stomach. He swallowed, fists clenching at his sides, wanting nothing more than to punch that condescending smirk off the man's face. He needed to leave, to get out of this situation, but he couldn't. Not without Graber trailing behind like a mosquito, spouting vaguely good-intentioned advice and diagnoses, along with halfheartedly veiled jabs at his mental health and future prospects. How this man had ever received his degree, Sherlock hadn't the faintest. He deposited the jam roughly into the basket, feeling trapped.

Then, from a few aisles over, a faint song came drifting to Sherlock's ears.

"Liiiiittle skylark, gentle little skyyy-laaaark…"

Graber may be able to intimidate one genius, stranded out of his element and surrounded by the treacherous jam. But how might he fare against two?

"Liiiitle skyy-lark, I'll pluck your feathers off."

Graber looked around for the source of the melody. "What a morbid song!" His eyebrows twitched, as if already psychoanalyzing the singer in his head. "And to the tune of Alouette – you know, the children's song?"

"I'll pluck the feathers off your head, I'll pluck the feathers off your head…"

The sound was growing closer. Graber twitched again. "If that was my child, I'd make them stop singing such a horrible little song – am I right, Sherlock?"

Sherlock said nothing. On the one hand, he would prefer to minimize exposure to Graber as much as physically possible. On the other, he was rather curious as to how this would turn out.

"And your head! And your head! La la la l – oh."

Hamish froze in the entrance of the aisle, then shot forward and pressed himself shyly into Sherlock's coat.

Doctor Graber resembled a fish.

"Did you translate that yourself?" asked Sherlock softly.

Hamish nodded, still clutching the coat, staring wide-eyed at the catatonic psychiatrist. "Did I do it right?"

"It was flawless. You even got it to fit the song."

Hamish smiled. "I wasn't sure about _je te plumerai_ , but it's future tense, right?"

" _Futur simple_. Simple future."

"Oh. Good. Daddy won't let me get dry ice."

Doctor Graber ceased impersonating a grouper and bent down to greet Hamish, who shied away at this invasion of personal space. "Hey there, little man. What's your name?"

Hamish opened his mouth, closed it, and turned his face pleadingly up towards his father.

"This is Hamish." Sherlock lifted his chin, somewhat defiantly. "My son."

Graber actually took a step back. God, Sherlock loathed him. "Problem?"

"Sherlock – " Graber let out a rather exasperated breath. "You are a _sociopath_. And sociopaths and children – why did you think it was a good idea to mix the two?"

Hamish's hands began to drift upward, towards prayer position. Sherlock grabbed them hastily. Repulsive and idiotic as this man was, by no means did they need a sudden and in all probability violent display of psyke. Hamish returned his hands to holding onto Sherlock's coat and settled for a barely audible "I don't like you."

Graber bent down again, his face painfully close to Hamish's. He probably thought such nearness was comforting, somehow. Sherlock wondered dimly what pathetic excuse for a school he had graduated out of. Hamish flinched away, burying his head in Sherlock's coat. Sherlock leaned almost imperceptibly towards the shelves and placed a hand on Hamish's shoulder.

If Graber noticed this, he ignored it in favor of extending a hand toward Hamish's face. Sherlock's eyebrow twitched up. _This will not end well._

"Whyever not, little guy? Hamish? I'm a friend of your dad's, don't you want to come and say hi?" Graber attempted to ruffle Hamish's hair, fondly.

And Hamish sunk his teeth into the doctor's finger.

Graber yanked away, aghast, and inspected the wounded digit. Luckily, Hamish hadn't drawn blood. (He had been known to, but only in truly dangerous situations.)

He shook his head, sadly, patronizingly. "I feel sorry for your child, Sherlock. What must the situation be like at home – to warrant this sort of behavior out in public?"

Sherlock stopped giggling. It had ceased to be funny. If Hamish's hands went up again, he wouldn't stop them.

Suddenly, John appeared from around the corner, slightly out of breath. "Sherl, have you seen Hamish, I can't find him anywh – oh, hello. Am I interrupting something?"

"Please disturb," said Sherlock.

John nodded. The phrase from an early case had become a sort of code for "rescue me from this social situation before I die or kill someone." He picked up Hamish and set him in the cart before addressing Graber. "Doctor John Holmes-Watson. Pleasure."

 _"Non, il n'est pas,"_ said Hamish from the cart. Sherlock snorted quietly. _No, it isn't._

"Doctor Alex Graber," the man replied, accepting the proffered handshake. "Friend of Sherlock's."

"Friend?"

"Therapist," responded Sherlock and Hamish in unison.

And John understood, in one of his rare moments of startling lucidity. His body language changed subtly, as if he had just became aware of the hostility of his current situation, and his fingers snaked into Sherlock's. "Think we're about done here, love, don't you?"

"Hamish said you wouldn't get dry ice," said Sherlock by way of response.

"We've already got enough volatile chemicals in the flat just waiting to be trodden in as it is, we're not adding dry ice on top of all that."

"But…it's for a case, John!"

"No, it's not, you finished your last case this morning."

"I could always teach Hamish to shoot the wall."

John laughed and hopped up on his toes to plant a kiss on Sherlock's cheek. "You won't. Let's go home."

"Fine," said Sherlock.

"Fine," said Hamish.

"Fine," said John.

And so they did.

Eventually, Doctor Graber did manage to pick his jaw up off the floor.


	7. Age 6: Dance

Lestrade paced the crime scene and resisted the urge to kick something.

He gave up, took out his fury on a wall, leaned against said wall, and rubbed at his ever-growing headache.

Officers and forensic technologists buzzed around the scene like self-important flies. He tried to shut out the dull, officious chatter and think.

The solution was _there_ , he could feel it. Just barely out of his reach. There was something, _something_ staring him in the face, but he just couldn't see it.

He could solve this by himself, of course he could. He wouldn't – he didn't need to –

Lestrade stopped deceiving himself. He really did need to. He sighed resignedly and pulled out his phone.

_Locked-room murder. Seems pretty straightforward, but our team can't figure it out. Interested?_

Sherlock texted back within a minute.

_Your team couldn't figure their way out of paper bag. Hamish has been practicing. We're on our way. –SH_

Lestrade rubbed his hands over his face. That's what he was afraid of.

Soon enough, a cab pulled up to the scene, and the enigma of a six-year-old popped out. His strange half-blond, half-black curly hair clashed rather with a bright green jumper whose sleeves fell over his hands.

He frowned at the abundance of people and glanced uncertainly back at the car. John, emerging and shutting the door behind him, gave a small smile and nodded. Hamish turned, giving off an air of resolution, and approached Lestrade from the side.

"Hi," he said.

Lestrade smiled and extended a hand to ruffle Hamish's hair – then thought better of it, because the last time someone had tried to do that Hamish had bitten them. It seemed to be his primary method of defense against unwanted physical contact. Which was most physical contact.

"It's in there, right? Is Anderson here?" asked Hamish seriously.

"Yeah, sorry, I tried to keep him away from the actual crime scene, though."

Hamish turned wordlessly and trotted into the house, dodging nimbly around members of the Yard and trailed by his fathers. He received a few strange looks, but only from the newer officers.

John noticed the expression on his husband's face. "Why're you smirking like that?"

"Never thought that having a child would be a get-out-of-Anderson-free card."

John laughed briefly. "Remember Hamish's first solved crime? I've never seen Anderson so shocked as when he got shouted at in front of the entire force for stepping in the evidence. By a four-year-old."

"I have the video."

One of the aforementioned newer officers attempted to stop them at the door. "Hey, buddy," he said, crouching to Hamish's height, "I'm not sure how you got in here, but listen, this is police business. Top secret. Maybe you can wait a few years before joining the force, what do you say? Do you know where your mum is?"

Hamish, who as a general rule took no nonsense, folded his arms and glared. "My name is Hamish William Holmes-Watson."

The officer looked confused for less than a second, to his credit, before standing up and backing off. "Hey, sorry. Lestrade told me about you guys. By all means, go ahead."

Hamish entered the room, furniture trashed and askew and walls spattered slightly with blood, almost emotionlessly. His mouth crinkled a bit when he saw the body, but that was all. It was strange to see him like this – a far cry from at home, where he would set up elaborate crime scenes with stuffed animals and make confident contributions to Sherlock's deductive process while reading case notes over his shoulder.

He whipped out the tiny pocket magnifier – his favorite birthday present from the year before – and began to silently pore over every inch of the room he was tall enough to reach. Sherlock and John stood in the doorway, watching him work, ready to help if needed but not about to interpose their opinions on him unnecessarily. Hamish's feet moved easily, almost rhythmically around patches of floor and scattered furniture that instinct told him were important. It was almost dancing.

After a coda of jerky, half-started movements that meant his brain was getting in the way of his body, Hamish stopped short and went into Mind Castle position. When he emerged a few moments later, and after a hushed conference with his fathers, he finally turned to Lestrade and presented his theory.

Lestrade, for his part, had been absorbed in the motions of Hamish's crime-scene dance. It was so like Sherlock, but somehow so very different. He blinked and came back into himself.

Hamish's explanation was spot-on, at least according to Sherlock. It effortlessly connected the dots that Lestrade himself had had trouble connecting, and those he had no idea needed connected. Now that it had been explained to him – by a six-year-old! Not that he was complaining – it was crystal clear. He didn't know how he hadn't thought of it before. Which, of course, was what he knew would happen.

"Bloody brilliant," he couldn't help but murmur at the conclusion of Hamish's little speech.

Hamish grinned and ducked his head, looking away, his version of a heartfelt thank you.

Lestrade smiled as he watched them leave. If he was brutally honest with himself, there had been times when he had wondered if Sherlock and John were going to separate for good. Particularly after that business with Magnussen and Mary, he had sometimes doubted that their friendship could ever heal. But now…

A chance glimpse of his watch sent him hurrying on his way. Sherlock's brother had asked him out for coffee, and he was not going to be late for that.


	8. Age 7: Poltergeist

"You're _sure?"_ asked John, for thousandth arbitrary time.

"Mrs. Hudson's visiting her sister, Mycroft's working, Lestrade's coming with us, Molly's traveling. Nothing for it," responded Sherlock, rather bleakly. "We'll have to hire a sitter."

"Oh my God," said John, putting his face in his hands.

Hours before, a new, scintillating case had burst out of the blue. The killer's work was untraceable, bizarre, and masterful in its flawless complexity. It was also brutal, gruesome, and chillingly targeted at officers of the law. They hadn't faced such a grisly and physically dangerous case since before Hamish came along. And so a consensus had been reached that Hamish would not investigate with them.

This had, of course, taken place before the necessity of a sitter became apparent. Had this conclusion been reached earlier, the results may have been wildly different.

"I heard the word sitter," announced Hamish, reading a book, eating a banana, and walking into the room at the same time. The banana floated loosely around his face, leaving his hands free for turning pages.

Sherlock winced. "Sorry."

Hamish lowered the book. "Really?"

"Her name's Miss Carlsberg, she's a member of Mrs. Hudson's bridge club."

Hamish blinked and quirked an eyebrow.

"She'll be here for approximately five hours, three of which you'll be awake for."

"What if I don't like her?"

A silent, apologetic (from John and Sherlock) concession was made that the likelihood of this not happening was slim to none.

"What if she's a kidnapper? Can I bite her?"

"If she's a kidnapper you can bite her," said John, wondering how this conversation felt so natural to him. "Or psyke her, if you want."

"If she's an idiot can I bite her?"

Sherlock opened his mouth. John put a hand over it without looking. _"No."_

"Darn."

"Hamish, I'm really sorry about this. Listen, if she's unreasonable, or evil, or your psyke's acting strange, _anything_ – call us. You're a higher priority than this case. You know that."

"That's why I'm not on it, yes," said Hamish, and went up to his room to prepare.

"He's not angry?" said John to Sherlock, quietly. It was more of a statement.

"Annoyed, yes, frustrated with the world, yes, dreading the evening, yes, but not angry."

**************************

Miss Carlsberg was – no other word for it – pert. Heels touching and sensible-shoe-encased toes pointed out, featureless black pencil skirt, cerulean blouse with just a lick of fabric shy of too many ruffles. Severe haircut, pointed nose, wrinkles that could be construed as sophisticated, if one was so inclined. Age 56 – no, 57 – businesswoman, divorced 16 years ago, currently seeing a man she had met through a dating site. Brown eyes, controlled smile, too much lipstick in Umbridge pink. Wrinkled nose at experiments on the kitchen table. And the skull. Not an abnormal reaction. Unremarkable. Hamish would give her a chance, if she stayed out of his way.

"Good evening, Hamish. How do you do?" Unassuming smile, but no offered handshake. Hamish said nothing. Her chance didn't include the agony of conversation. She would really have to prove herself for that privilege.

The smile was more brittle now. Dad tried to make amends. "He doesn't talk, usually, around people he doesn't' know well. It's not personal, just him." A quick explanation of bedtime, supper, ground rules (no experiments in the bedroom or on the couch), and Hamish and Miss Carlsberg were alone in the flat. Miss Carlsberg perched on Dad's chair as if the silence was awkward. Which from her perspective, supposed Hamish, it was. He didn't care. He went on soundly thrashing Byron, the Gym Leader of Canalave City. If there was one thing he appreciated about school, it was his chance exposure to Pokémon there.

"So, Hamish. What are you studying in school?"

The voice jarred him unpleasantly out of Sinnoh. His Gabite Nero was thoroughly wiping the floor with Bastiodon. It was much more attractive than the outside world to watch. "Hnnnn."

"Excuse me? What was that?"

"Hnn."

Miss Carlsberg let out a tiny sigh that she probably thought was unnoticeable. "Hamish, I'm going to have to ask you to turn that thing off and speak with me."

A lengthy silence passed before Hamish answered with a short "Why?"

And that's where things started to go downhill.

"Because, good children speak when they are spoken to."

_Oh no. Please don't turn into a Victorian governess on me._ Hamish tested the waters with a simple, vaguely interested "Do they?"

Miss Carlsberg _bristled._ It was a common enough action, but she managed to personify the essence of the verb itself. Her whole body radiated a pert aura of bristliness.

"Why, yes, in fact, they do. They also make eye contact when speaking and respect their elders."

"Am I being disrespectful?" asked Hamish curiously. He had heard his teachers call other students that, but he had never experienced it for himself. And it wasn't an issue around Dad and Father – they _understood,_ a better alternative to respect any day.

Miss Carlsberg didn't interpret it as curiosity. "By even asking that question, you are bordering rudeness."

Hamish shut the game to pause it and rolled over so he was facing her. He could get behind an honest discussion of differing ideals, particularly ones he had no prior knowledge of. "Why? Because I question? Because I speak my mind?"

"It is not the place of young children to question the wisdom of their betters, nor is it their place to prattle or speak when not told to! And get your feet off the couch!"

His face and body stiffened. He blinked at the force of the reprimand, feeling a shocked, hurt wet thickness behind his eyes and throat. He grabbed his game and went calmly to his room.

Supper was a strained affair. Miss Carlsberg fixed lasagna and peas. The lasagna was fine – in fact, he could have had more. He was hungry, his already fast metabolism increased by stress, and all the snacks in his room gone. But he had a strong aversion to peas. The flavor stuck wetly in his mouth, and the mushy texture was unbearable on his tongue and made him want to choke. He tried to explain this, but was branded as overreacting, picky and spoiled, and ordered to eat the peas before getting any more lasagna. As a result, his stomach was growling inconveniently. Dad had forgotten to inform her of his metabolic condition.

The wet thickening thickened. He could hardly breathe around the lump in his throat. This hadn't happened before; he'd always at least had allies. But if Father and Dad were in danger, a phone call at an inopportune time would be disastrous. Also, he doubted she would let him use the phone. His brain didn't know how to handle it. He wanted nothing more than to escape to his room for the remainder of the night.

But the tyranny continued.

(He knew that other children lived in conditions like this. He knew he could be seen as overreacting. He didn't care. The fact of the matter was that he, Hamish William Holmes-Watson, had never experienced this, and it was panicking him.)

After supper there was no Pokémon (he had been in the middle of a battle and the DS would probably lose power), no television (shouting at it was an evening ritual), no hiding upstairs (he was pretty sure his brain would explode), and most dreadful of all, _forced socialization_ and _no books._ But things really came to a head at 6:48. An inauspicious time. It caught him by surprise.

"Alright, Hamish. Time for bed." The request (order?) came out of nowhere.

"What?!" He struggled to reconcile his brain to this novel, routine-skewing concept. Bedtime was 7:30. It had been for a long time. Everyone knew that. He couldn't just _change_ it with no warning.

(He hadn't been kidnapped since he was five, but this was beginning to feel like an abduction.) "But – "

(Did that mean he was justified to use –)

And Miss Carlsberg lost her head. "No talking back! Children who stay up past seven invariably grow up to be stupid, whiny, backtalking ingrates!"

Hamish narrowed his eyes imperceptibly. _Well. That settles that, then._

The skull twitched on the mantelpiece.

"Well? I told you to go to bed!"

_She didn't hear._ The case notes under the skull rustled.

Miss Carlsberg's eyes flicked around. Everything was still.

While her back was still turned, Hamish allowed his face to melt into a devilish grin. Oh, this would be _fun._

**********************

"SHERLOCK!" John screamed, pushing past Lestrade's team into the abandoned apartment complex, gun cocked and loaded. Heart pounding, he kicked in door after door, because behind one of these doors was the killer, and behind the same door was Sherlock. Tied to a chair. Unconscious. At least, on the video.

_"John!"_ he heard, and then a muffled thump and cry of pain, and rage swelled red in his vision. He located the source of the sound and gave the door a hearty kick – maybe the killer would be standing less than eight feet away from the threshold – but no such luck. Instead, he stood safely in the middle of the room, positioned over Sherlock, who was still bound to the chair. The fear shimmering in Sherlock's eyes mirrored the feral glint of the knife pressed to his throat.

John didn't think, didn't blink, didn't miss a beat as he fired into the murderer's shoulder, crossed the room and pistol-whipped him across the head hard enough to render him unconscious. He tipped Sherlock's face up, searching for injuries, but other than a slight trickle of blood dripping from his nose he seemed fine. It never hurt to ask, though. "You okay?"

"Fide, Johd." But as soon as his bonds were cut away Sherlock pulled John into a hug, gripping him hard enough to hurt and breathing deeply into his neck.

"I was worried," John breathed into his ear. "When you went missing, I was so worried. I love you."

Sherlock shifted a hand to cup the back of John's neck and kissed him, long and deep. They only broke apart when a cell phone rang noisily from somewhere in the room.

"Is that…?" John gestured to the unconscious criminal. It did seem to be coming from his vicinity.

"Id's probably be. He took bine, before I woke ub." Sherlock fished his mobile out of one of the murderer's pockets. "Sherlock Holbes-Wadson."

"Your flat is _possessed!"_ shrilled Miss Carlsberg; loud enough that John could hear it clearly from where he stood. Sherlock winced and held the phone away from his ear. There was muffled crashing in the background, though that could have been Lestrade's team bumbling their way through the halls.

Miss Carlsberg continued screeching with the force of a banshee, babbling about flying skulls and rustling paper and unexplained crashes and devil-children. John's eyebrows got progressively higher after each hysterical accusation, plummeting abruptly at the last one.

"Biss Carlsberg – " Sherlock attempted (ineffectually, it must be said) to placate the sitter through the phone. "Biss Carlsberg, if you could – "

"Here," said John, holding out a hand, and Sherlock passed him the phone with an air of relief. He put it a few inches away from his ear. "Listen, Miss Carlsberg, we'll be home soon, so if you could hang on until then, I'm sure there's a rational explanation for this – "

"This is Hamish. I've stolen the phone and I'm hiding in my room with the door half open." The voice was cross and slightly shaky. "You owe me _apologies."_


	9. Age 8: Conference

Miss Patience Noire didn't play favorites, no good teacher did, but she had to admit a special fondness for Hamish William Holmes-Watson. Her little enigma, she called him. He never answered to it, but she was sure that he would warm up in time. She was, after all, the poor boy's only friend.

Hamish, though isolated, was inarguably a genius. He completed assignments impossibly fast, possessed a massive vocabulary coupled with impeccable spelling and grammar, and consistently received A's on every test. During Group Reading, he had finished the chapter before they had even completed the first page. He loathed the books the school provided, preferring instead to bring and devour his own - many of which by all rights he shouldn't have been capable of reading. He absorbed any and all knowledge like a sponge. And Miss Noire - possibly the most competent teacher at this school, if she did say so herself - delighted in allowing him many opportunities to express his intellect to the class.

Three years out of uni, dark-haired and perky, Miss Patience's teaching style was hers and hers alone. If a child knew the answer, if she knew they knew the answer, she called on them. Why waste class time asking a child who could barely string a sentence together, subjecting them to painful and unnecessary humiliation, when they could just as easily listen to what another, smarter child had to say? And Hamish, being Hamish, didn't mind in the slightest when she called on him more than anyone else. He knew the answer every time, and was doubtless proud to share his knowledge with the class.

But her poor little enigma did have his share of problems. She was no detective, but even she could easily see that something wasn't right in the Holmes-Watson house. Of course she wasn't homophobic, that was ridiculous, but she knew that despite good intentions, the model of one man and one woman would always be ideal for a child's optimal growth. She felt sorry for Hamish, she really did. He was friendless excluding her, yet somehow managed to always acquire a second lunch, which he inhaled in record time. He was always trying to sneak a bite or a nap in class - she let him, of course, he obviously wasn't able to do this much at home. And it wasn't as if his grades suffered. He had a doctor's note for it, naturally, but it was signed by one of his fathers, so how reliable was it? He showed little empathy for his classmates, paying more attention to his own little world than anything outside. As a result, he had little to no social skills. He was fond of wandering for hours in the library after school, incredibly secretive about his home life, always acting as if he had something to hide, developing a sense of perfectionism (which wasn't all bad, of course, if it kept him getting high grades), reluctant to explain his inner thought process, instead mumbling some silly remark about a "mind castle," shied away from friendly touch... She had met Sherlock Holmes-Watson, towering over his son and husband in more ways than one. But Hamish and John's obvious fear of him would not stop Miss Patience Noire from giving that man a significant piece of her mind.

Which is why she was looking forward to Parent Meetings tonight.

***************************

"I'm looking forward to Parent Meetings tonight," said John in the cab on the way over.

Sherlock grunted.

"I don't honestly know if she loves me or hates me," announced Hamish, sandwiched between the two.

"So you've said. She sounds like quite the enigma," John mused.

"That's what she calls me, 'her little enigma.' Can you believe it? She's detestable."

"Detestable," echoed Sherlock. "That's a new one."

"She thinks you're abusive, you know."

Sherlock let out a brief laugh. "I'm abusive? Who was the one who dragged us away from an experiment of utmost importance to attend this excruciating affair?"

"Hush, you git," said John affectionately. "I told you it was coming up a week ago." To Hamish, whose hands were clenched uncomfortably in his lap, he asked, "Nervous?"

Hamish nodded. "I can't tell her about home, obviously, because of psyke and cases, but that means she thinks you hurt me!" The very concept seemed to cause him stress.

"I know, Hamish," John replied soothingly. "Remember, we're on your side."

*****************************

Sherlock entered room 26 first, collar popped and coat billowing impressively in the sour current produced by the antiquated air conditioning system. He wrinkled his nose in distaste. The walls were bright, glaringly so, scattered with garish posters of grinning cartoon animals and simplistic, condescending explanations of the most childlike concepts. Did You Know? When water gets too hot, it floats into the air and turns into steam! When it gets too cold, it gets hard and turns into ice! Water is pretty nifty, isn't it? Sherlock suppressed a sneer. The desks were arranged in pods. Pods.

Miss Patience glanced up and almost imperceptibly went on the defensive. She gestured to the three chairs in front her desk. "Sherlock and John Holmes-Watson, a pleasure. And Hamish, of course. Do sit down, we have a lot to discuss."

John pursed his lips and sat, followed by the others. Hamish raised an eyebrow. Sherlock leaned forward, steepling his fingers under his chin. "Whenever you're ready, Miss Noire."

The teacher cleared her throat, obviously uncomfortable under the triple scrutiny. "Patience, please."

Sherlock's gaze was more into glare territory by this point. Miss Patience swallowed. This would be harder than she thought.

"Well, Hamish is obviously very intelligent, as you can see from his test scores - he has been showing you those, correct?" Miss Patience thought that the safest course of action at this point would be to subtly manipulate Sherlock into admitting or doing something incriminating. She braced herself for the man to explode with anger - she was willing to bet the test papers were lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of Hamish's bag.

"Yeah, of course. We're very impressed." Much to the surprise of Miss Patience, it was John who responded. "Got a couple of those up on the refrigerator."

"And what about you, Mr. Sherlock? Are you at all interested in how Hamish is doing in school?"

"I show as much involvement as he does," murmured Sherlock, it must be said, disinterestedly.

"Alright," said Miss Patience after a pause. Phase One had yielded less than optimal results, on to Phase Two. "However, I do have some concerns about his level of interaction with the other students. He consistently eats and spends recess alone, and he seems not to care about anyone but himself. Is he this withdrawn at home?"

"Oh, he's not withdrawn, I wouldn't say that. It's just, he has a specific set of standards you have to meet before he considers putting any effort into interacting with you, and sometimes it takes a while to reach those standards." John shrugged. "It's the same with Sherlock, really."

"And - you would say that despite knowing him for almost half a year, I have not yet reached those standards?"

"Obviously not," replied Sherlock testily. Hamish smirked and covered it with a hand.

John shot them both a reproving glare. "Ah - Miss Patience, I was wondering a bit about that. I noticed as we came in - Hamish's desk appears to be in the focal point of the largest group of seats? It's obviously an unusual position, and I'm curious to hear your reasons behind it."

The teacher leaned forward, distracted for the time being by an excuse to expound upon her teaching style. "Oh, yes, I usually arrange a section of less intelligent children around one designated 'teacher's helper,' who spearheads the group and offers assistance when needed. The number of children corresponds to the leader's respective test scores, thus Hamish's being the largest in the class."

John nodded carefully. "I see."

Sign language was one of Hamish's four dialects so far. It came in handy for discreetly saying things like "you are a master of the understatement" without being detected. Sherlock put this skill to use presently. Hamish signed D-E-T-E-S-T-A-B-L-E back letter by letter, to add emphasis.

"And how does Hamish generally handle this group? Is he a good, er, leader?" John had about the same look on his face as he had when at one point he had mistakenly called Sherlock "mate."

"That was another thing I was waiting to bring up here. I'm sorry to say this, but Hamish is definitely not reaching our expectations in that area. He's described by his classmates as standoffish, impatient, and unfocused - not their exact words, of course, but that is the gist. This is obviously not normal behavior for a healthy eight-year-old boy. Is there anything different, by any chance, anything difficult going on in the house right now? Anything that might cause him to act this way?" If there was one thing Miss Patience prided herself on, it was her ability to spot a falsehood a mile away. It came with being a teacher.

"No," John, Hamish, and Sherlock responded at once. The thread of the conversation promptly dropped, leaving all four stranded in a silence awkward with thoughts hidden hastily from view.

Hamish suddenly became overcome with a fit of giggles and had to put his face in his hands and snicker helplessly.

Miss Patience blinked, taken aback. That was not what she had been expecting. Now she knew they were hiding something, of course, but was slightly apprehensive at the fact that she had no idea what it could be.

"Can we go home now? I'm bored," said Sherlock listlessly. He was slumped in his chair, displaying the kind of posture Miss Patience would come over and rap on a child's desk for.

"No. We're almost done, Sherl." John gave a tiny sigh and turned apologetically to Miss Patience. "Was there anything else you wanted to discuss?"

If the previous incident had taken Miss Patience by surprise, this one took her by stupefying shock. She was vaguely aware that this was one of those things that made her sister call her a drama queen, but this had turned all her carefully evidenced theories on their heads. Hamish, recovering, glanced up and promptly lost it again. It occurred to her that her face may have not been strictly under her control.

"Er, yes, as I was saying about his, er, reclusive behavior..." Miss Patience scrabbled in her desk for a piece of paper. "As a professional in dealing with the world of children, I can tell you frankly that I'm somewhat concerned for his lack of sociability. I'm sure you can understand that at this age children should be making friends, going to birthday parties, getting to know as many people as possible, generally having the time of their lives before the responsibility gets too heavy. I first thought of this when you mentioned his 'high social standards' earlier in the meeting, which stood out as odd to me, but may I suggest consulting with a child psychologist? I know of a good one, I recommend him to many of my similarly impaired students. I'm sure he can fix you up with some medication and Hamish will become an absolute social butterfly in no time!"

Hamish stopped laughing. Sherlock's whole body was tense. Miss Patience took no notice. She really should clean this desk more.

"Here," she said finally, sliding over a piece of paper with a name, phone number and address scribbled on it. "He's my dear friend, a real gregarious guy. I bet you'll be getting along in no time."

John, Hamish and Sherlock stared at the paper in silence. Two dark, curly heads lifted to gaze at John imploringly.

"Please," said John quietly. "Be my guests."

Sherlock smirked briefly and began.

"Where did you learn your teaching style? I say learn in the loosest possible sense of the word, of course. No uni on Earth would teach such an ableist, counterproductive method unless it was run out of a garage. If a child doesn't fit exactly with your mold they must be hopelessly stupid or need some sort of chemical pumped into their system until they're your mindless, yet intelligent enough to teach the class for you, drone, correct?"

"Your tests are horrifically biased, by the way, you quiz over almost exclusively details and little to no 'big idea.' And don't listen to me, no need to break your spectacular streak, but I know that later, none of the tests I take will be over pointless and trivial details. Nobody cares about the color of the main character's shirt! What pleasure do you derive from writing questions it would be nearly impossible for anyone to answer unless they had a memory that verged on eidetic?!" Hamish had joined in too. It was the most animated Miss Patience had ever seen him.

"It's really little wonder," continued Sherlock conversationally, half to the teacher and half to his son. "Your only real experience with children is the yearly family reunions, where you're put in charge of the whole extended family's twelve, no, fourteen children ranging from ages two to sixteen. They all hate you, you know, with a passion, but are afraid to incur their grandmother's wrath - you're her favorite, she doesn't have enough money to go on shopping sprees with anyone else. It's obvious," he went on, observing the look of shock on her face, "would you ever buy that dress if you weren't accompanied by someone with much more conservative tastes? Your jewelry and handbag suggest not."

"Both gifts from your on-again-off-again boyfriend," Hamish added. "He's planning to dump you for good soon. The gifts are decreasing in price and quality, and you've been applying more and more makeup before date nights in a semiconscious effort to make yourself more desirable so he changes his mind. He won't. He's planning to propose to the girl he's been cheating on you with. Notice how he hasn't given you anything with diamonds in a long time?"

Sherlock raised his eyebrows. "Well done. Ice cream afterwards, I think."

Hamish grinned and blushed. Sherlock smiled back, then continued his calm tirade.

"Oh yes, let's add subtle homophobia to the list of complaints, shall we? The first thing you thought when noticing that Hamish was differing from the norm, and not in a positive way, was that he must be experiencing violence at home. I can guarantee that not once did bullying, or a death in the family, or any sort of other rational explanation cross your mind. Two fathers, incapable of raising a child, that's the only explanation. You're not homophobic, no, never! You're just stating a fact! It's just what happens, that a man and a woman do a better job at raising a healthy, balanced, normal child than two of the aforementioned ever could!"

"I never - I - " Miss Patience was proving unexpectedly adept at imitations of deep-sea fish - wide, alarming eyes, gaping mouth. "I just want what's best for the kids!"

Then John added his two cents, speaking levelly and quietly. But he was wearing his dangerous smirk. "Every day when Hamish comes home I get to hear another story of how you single him out again and again, forcing him to answer question after simplistic question without even giving the others a chance. You think you're letting him express himself and gain adoration from his classmates? Think again. You're exhausting him, mentally and physically. He can barely keep his eyes open when he gets home because he counted and he answers two questions for every time another student answers one. That's just not fair. He's ignored on the playground every day. You're fostering a growing resentment amongst his classmates, you know. They're jealous, but at the same time, they see him as almost a sort of knowledge god. They're afraid to approach him for help, because he'll snap at them because he's tired and hungry and miserable, and because they don't want to be ostracized for associating with the freak. I'm not making this up. It's all things he's told me, but didn't want to say. I offered to say it for him, and he accepted. So here we are." John hadn't raised his voice, but the room was ringing as if he had shouted. Miss Patience quailed under the sheer malevolent force hiding behind the smirk.

"Let's go," John murmured, his smirk widening with triumph. Hamish tried to suppress his grin as they stood up at the same time. It would ruin the effect.

"One more thing, Miss Noire. Your dear friend Graber is the scum of the universe," Sherlock shot over his shoulder, closing the door dramatically behind him.

"Detestable," said Hamish knowledgeably as they regrouped in the hallway. "Monday will be interesting. Do you think they have pistachio ice cream?"


	10. Age 9: Escape Kit

_"Sherlock..."_

Sherlock started at John's tone of voice. Straightening up, he shifted to stand nonchalantly in front of the refrigerator. "John. Er, hello."

The sharp smell of burned plastic did nothing to help the shoddy disguise's credibility. John set the shopping on the floor. "Let me see."

There was a few seconds of tense silence before Sherlock stepped aside, conceding defeat. John knelt down beside him. Somehow a bottle of acid resting on the bottom shelf had been knocked over, and now there was a fist-sized hole through the bottom of the refrigerator. If they were lucky, it would melt through the floor and into Mrs. Hudson's kitchen as well.

John stared at it in incredulous silence for a moment before regaining the gift of speech. "Well, I suppose that's that, then. Have you tried cleaning it up?"

"How do you clean up acid, John?"

"You're the one who brought the stuff into the flat in the first place!"

"I didn't think it would _spill!"_ Sherlock responded petulantly.

"You know what - forget it." John stood up and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "You can Google it. While you're at it, we need a new fridge. See if you can find a good price online."

Sherlock nodded and fled the situation. John found a rag in the cupboard, dipping it tentatively in the fizzing liquid and hissing as it stung his fingers. How _did_ one clean up acid?

***************************

The door slammed from below, followed by the sound of small feet pounding up the steps and a nonhousekeeper shouting "Hamish, dear, _do_ slow down!" John stood up just before the source of these noises barreled into the kitchen and made for his traditional snack of fish fingers and custard, only to observe that there was a slightly smoking hole and a disgruntled dad where the fish was meant to be. He stopped short, backpack floating halfway off his shoulders.

"The Riddle experiment fell over," he stated.

"Yes." John held the rag away from his body with two fingers. A few drops fell on the floor and sizzled.

Hamish tugged the rag out of John's hand with psyke, dangling it over the original test tube. "How do you clean up acid?"

"That's a very good question! Don't suppose you'd have an answer for that, _would you, Sherlock?"_

"This one comes with an ice machine!" called Sherlock from the living room.

Hamish frowned. "Is there fish?"

"Yeah, it's in one of those bags. Think we've still got some custard behind the pancreas. Your father's being unhelpful, could you help me with this right quick?"

Liquids were harder for Hamish to hold with his mind than solids - too much to keep track of - but together, they managed to lift the acid out of the hole and deposit it, bubbling sinisterly, back into the beaker. There was still a hole in the fridge, of course, psyke could only go so far. Hamish found his snack and went through the process of sorting through his backpack, making meticulous piles of important and unimportant, while still eating. Papers and textbooks floated through the air. He was enjoying school a lot more with Mr. Dillamond, but it still taxed his energy immensely.

"I think I found a good one, John," came Sherlock's voice. "It's £77 and it has a separate place I could use for experiments."

Interest piqued by this olive branch, John walked out of the kitchen to lean over Sherlock's shoulder. The fridge was silver, incongruously streamlined for a fridge, with a sizable separated compartment that might be conceivably designed to hold fruit. "Looks good. What's the shipping cost?"

The shipping cost turned out to be reasonable. Hamish meandered over to ensure that it fit his expectations - he felt he should be able to control some aspect of this unanticipated change, at least.

"Did you ever look up how to clean up acid?" asked John when the refrigerator was ordered and set to arrive on Tuesday.

Sherlock scoffed. "Obviously you get your psychokinetic alien child to put it back where it came from. That method's free, as well."

"Ah, but what if the tube had broken?" interjected Hamish.

"It didn't."

"But if it had."

"There is more than one beaker in the flat."

"True."

****************************

They were able to store the necessary foodstuffs (and the definitely-inedible-but-no-less-necessary-stuffs) in Mrs. Hudson's fridge downstairs until Tuesday. The latter took some persuading, but it was managed. Life was normal in a very loose sense of the word, but that in itself was ordinary.

Tuesday caught Hamish rather by surprise. One day he was performing his sorting ritual and surreptitiously consuming cookies in Mrs. Hudson's dining room, the next he was sitting at the top of the stairs to his room, one arm loosely wound around the bars, peering at the workmen hefting the heavy six-foot box into their flat. Experimentally, he tried to loosen their load a bit, and discovered he could. One cursed as, nearly giddy, Hamish dropped it on his toe. The Doctor would be excited. It had to weigh at least 250 pounds.

Hamish watched them remove the box and maneuver the shining new refrigerator in place. It was a big box. He could probably lie down in it. Hmm.

"Could you _idiots_ be any louder, I'm trying to _concentrate!"_

Hamish smirked. Sherlock had locked himself in his and Dad's room as soon as the truck had pulled up to 221, taking with him an armful of case notes and the skull. He didn't seem to be making much progress, as evidenced by his frequent shouts to be more quiet and inquiries about whether his lab was serviceable yet. (The table had been moved to the living room, and the numerous experiments were piled hazardously on the counters.)

"Ignore him," John sighed for the tenth time, supervising from the doorway to the living room. "Just...ignore him. I'm sorry about this."

"It's fine, sir. We've had worse," said one of the workers. "'Least he's not got parakeets free all over the place. Remember that one, Jack?"

The one evidently named Jack laughed. "'Ow could I forget? Me uniform's still got the stains! 'Ere, sir, we can just take this box for you, if ya like."

"What? Oh, sure. Go ahead."

Mind made up, Hamish sprung down the stairs to pull John down to his height. He whispered urgently into his ear for almost a minute, John's expression changing from confusion to comprehension to a smile. The workers waited patiently. They had encountered shy kids in their time, and didn't mind in the slightest. Better than parakeets in many respects.

John cleared his throat. "We'll keep the box. Thanks."

"Right. Pleasure workin' with ya. Tell yer 'usband 'e can rearrange his kitchen whenever." Jack tipped his hat and the workers filed out.

John and Hamish worked together to move the box from downstairs up to Hamish's room and lay it horizontally in a corner. Sherlock emerged at some point to help. He was surprisingly cheerful due to there being the proper number of people in the flat, and a slew of cases he had managed to solve despite distractions. He helped find unused pillows and blankets to pile in the box, and even rigged up a small reading light. A curtain was hung over the front, and Hamish spent a good amount of time deciding which books and snacks were necessary for his box.

By the time it was finished, the hideaway contained enough pillows to lie down on, two blankets, five books, pickles, some leftover cake, a large tin of peanuts, Goldfish crackers, a notebook and whiteboard, the necessary writing utensils, his Aslan, Cassie Bee and Little Smaug the Tremendous. He still slept with those three, and if it was considered immature, the ones considering had no business judging his sleeping process. Some of the others stood guard.

Hamish surveyed his handiwork proudly. Maybe he'd paint it later, it would be a good project for when he was bored.

"Impressive," said John when Hamish invited him to look inside. "So what are you planning on doing in here? Read, obviously, but maybe homework as well, or cases if you wanted? Are you going to sleep here?"

"Not on a regular basis," Hamish answered mildly. "It's kind of just an escape kit from the world." He grinned. "That's a good name for it, don't you think?"


	11. Age 10: Mission

The school's doors slammed open, Hamish reined in his psyke and hoped no one had seen, and drew attention away from it by racing outside at the head of his class. It was the start of the Easter holidays, and there was a sleek black car waiting for him.

It was drawing a bit of attention, being significantly more elegant and mysterious than this school was accustomed to, which Greg, in the driver's seat, was painfully aware of. Uncle Myc (Hamish had no trouble remembering or pronouncing his uncle's name, but Father had been tutoring him in the subtle art of annoyance), seated beside him, seemed unperturbed.

Hamish scrambled into the backseat, sprawling himself comfortably over the very middle. He took off his backpack and pushed it to the floor with a _thump._

"Ready to go, Hamish?" asked Greg.

Hamish nodded, then replied, "Yeah. Have you got my luggage?"

"It should be in the trunk, that's where we put it," said Myc.

So he could spend some time with his uncle and uncle's boyfriend, and so his fathers could take a small but well-deserved vacation, Hamish was spending the first six days of the Easter holidays at Myc and Greg's mansion in the country. Well, really Myc's mansion, but Greg had been living there for more than a year. (They really needed to get married.) From what Hamish had heard, it was quite a commute.

An inkling of an idea pushed itself into the forefront of his brain and announced its presence.

"So, Hamish," asked Greg, trying to make conversation as they pulled away. "How's school? You have any special friends, anyone you're, er, interested in?"

The idea skittered off. "No," said Hamish, affrontedly. "Are you kidding? They're all idiots. They have the minds of goldfish, how am I supposed to identify with them on any level?"

"I don't have any problems with this one," Myc smirked.

"I don't know whether to be flattered or offended," muttered Greg.

"They channel all their energy into their surroundings instead of their mind. It's exhausting," Hamish continued. "I don't see why I have to interact with any of them more than the school forces me to already. So when are you guys going to get married?" The idea had returned triumphant.

"We hadn't thought about it much," said Greg after an awkward pause.

"You should," said Hamish confidently. Myc did not contribute to the discussion.

Then it was silent, and Hamish was bored. Nothing to do, until Myc switched on a classical music station playing Vivaldi and Hamish settled back against the seat and watched the clouds roll by.

The mansion was a sprawling three-story affair, with an entire warren of subterranean secret rooms and disused servants' corridors below. Hamish intended to make full exploratory use of these assets. But the first priority upon arrival was to levitate his luggage out of the trunk and set about finding somewhere to put it. He had been here for Christmas parties and the occasional babysitting instance, but never long enough to require a room.

Greg swung the massive gilded doors open easily, holding one so his boyfriend and surrogate nephew could get through. Hamish allowed his suitcase to clack and roll across the gleaming floorboards as he gazed around at the general magnificence. Large windows high in the walls meant that the room was lit almost completely by sunlight, but there was a shining chandelier for additional illumination if needed.

"Up here," said Greg, starting up the grand staircase in the center of the hall and glancing back to make sure Hamish was following. Hamish lifted the suitcase off the floor, allowing it to bounce lightly against each step. He trailed behind slightly, one hand clutching the bannister with a feeling of trepidation. Heights were a thing he was not fond of.

He'd have to tell Greg this at some point, he quickly realized. They were getting higher. Hamish kept his eyes resolutely on Greg's back. Myc was somewhere below, probably. Hopefully.

At last they emerged onto a landing and started down one of many hallways. Hamish relaxed. Floors like this were fine, as were most windows and stairs. Anywhere he couldn't see how high up he was unless he wanted to. Which, just in case there was any confusion, he didn't.

"How about this one?" asked Greg, opening a door and ushering him in.

Oh. Floor-to-ceiling windows. How lovely.

Hamish sat down very fast. His fingers clenched hard into the carpet. He felt himself begin to hyperventilate, his head spin, his heart pound. Dimly, he registered Greg sounding concerned in the background of his panic. "Hamish? You okay? Hamish!"

"Acrophobic," he spat through clenched teeth. "Severely."

"Oh." In a second Greg was kneeling beside him, one hand on his shoulder. "It's okay. I've got you. Can you get up?"

"Nope."

"Alright."

Hamish relaxed as soon as Greg lifted him into his arms. He carried him out gently and set him down outside, where a worried-looking Uncle Myc put a steadying hand on the small of his back. "I apologize. Had we known, we would have found you more suitable accommodations."

Hamish breathed. "You're fine."

A new room was found on the first floor, one with a lovely view of the garden and a queen-sized bed. Supper was unexpectedly informal and bedtime approached quickly.

Hamish sat on his bed and dug a notebook and pencil out of his suitcase. He chewed at the eraser a bit, then began to write.

_Operation Uncle Greg, or, A Documentation of Hamish William Holmes-Watson's Mission to Convince Gregory Lestrade to Propose to Mycroft Holmes: Day 1._

_Panic attacks have not grown more fun. But the plan is underway. I have planted the seeds in their minds, with luck and my help they will germinate. Excuse the odd metaphor. This will be an entertaining week._

***********************

He was a starfish, he was pretty sure. His limbs were spread out as far as they could go, and his head was buried in something soft, like most starfish.

Hamish decided to pretend to be a starfish for a while longer. He stretched, more luxuriously than he would have been able to at home, and burrowed into the squishy sand of the beach of the mattress. Sunlight streamed silently through the window of water, illuminating the forest of kelp beyond. The covers were underwater currents that brushed warm, blanketing sand over his starfish self.

The starfish decided it might be a good idea to check the time, as missing something would be calamitous. He blinked his eyes open and lifted his head, ignoring for a moment the fact that starfish had neither a head nor eyes.

9:24. Not unusual by any means.

Then again, he should probably get up. He didn't know how much Greg and Uncle Myc knew about his daily habits, and breakfast fell into the category of things it would be calamitous to miss.

But it was warm in the ocean, and this was the softest bed he'd ever experienced.

 _But,_ said his brain, finally kicking into gear, _Uncle Myc's at work now, and Greg's not. You know that._

In an uncommon instance of spontaneous evolution, the starfish grew legs and half hopped, half rolled out of bed to pad off to the dining room.

Greg was there, finishing a bagel with cream cheese and perusing the newspaper. Hamish found some eggs and joined him. The table was one of those long, slightly stereotypical tables normally seen in grand banquet halls in fantasy novels, completely inconvenient for conversation between two people at both ends. So instead, they normally ate clustered around the end nearest to the kitchen.

"Hey, good morning. How'd you sleep?" asked Greg, glancing up at the sound of Hamish's plate clinking against the polished surface.

"Good. That bed is superior to everything."

Greg chuckled. "I have to admit the beds in this house are amazing. I mean, I've only slept in one on a regular basis, but..." He coughed. "Mycroft's at work."

"I know. You can't leave me unsupervised because that would defeat the purpose of this week, so you're here, but the business in Czechoslovakia is detaining Uncle Myc. He's planning to take the rest of the week off, though."

Greg was silent for a moment. "First of all, how do you even know about Czechoslovakia?"

"Father's opinion differs from the media's on the matter."

"Right, 'course it does." Greg shook his head and went back to his paper.

No, they couldn't have that, not yet. Hamish tugged the edge of the paper down so Greg looked up and met his eyes.

"When are you going to propose to him?"

Greg raised his eyebrows. "Come again?"

"You heard me."

Sensing a looming discussion, Greg folded up the paper and put it on the table beside him. "Why are you so intent on this subject all of a sudden?"

"Married couples have a longer life expectancy, better health, more money and more happiness on average. They're also less likely to smoke, drink, get headaches, or have psychological problems." Hamish rattled off these factoids as if they were a memorized passage - not unlikely, knowing him. "Also I think you should, I want you to. I want to say Uncle Greg, it sounds nice. And he wants you to as well - deduced it, don't ask. He probably thinks he's giving off clear signals." Hamish smirked at the look on Greg's face and went back to his egg.

_Operation Uncle Greg, Day 2._

_Productive day. Seeds are sprouting wonderfully. Spent the day defeating Gym Leader Pryce - no match for Typhlosion Kilauea. Explored as well, I love this house. It reminds me of the castle in Conrad's Fate, it shouldn't, the servants' quarters are in the wrong place. Tomorrow we go to the Science Center!_

*****************************

"This place is amazing! How have I never been here before?!" shrieked Hamish. "Is that a planetarium?! Come on!"

The Science Center was not a quiet place, but despite that, Hamish was in his element. Paleontology, astronomy, biology, physics and many other divisions of science were demonstrated through kid-friendly but intelligent hands-on displays and exhibits. After a quick map conference, Hamish was dragging an overwhelmed Greg and a secretly-enjoying-himself Myc off to the Brain Laboratory.

From an early age, Hamish had been fascinated by every aspect of the mind, and the labyrinthic laboratory scattered with brain facts and experiments was heaven to him. He was content to wander until he had explored every corner, a process that took nearly an hour to itself.

The next captivation of Hamish's to be addressed was, ironically enough, astronomy. Sherlock had regained a lot of the information he had deleted by listening to Hamish chatter about this passion, and had once or twice taken Hamish stargazing, learning a lot in the process. There was just enough time before lunch to catch a constellations show in the planetarium, which Hamish, Greg and Myc did. Admittedly, the presentation was a bit slow-paced, but Hamish had fun deducing what the presenter would say before she said it and wiggling in his seat whenever he learned a new fact, which happened much more frequently than he had expected.

They ate lunch at a deli just outside of the Center. Greg, Hamish noted, was trying far too hard not to seem awkward.

"I'm gonna go look at the desserts around the corner," said Hamish, and left the table only to return shortly with a cupcake and lean on the wall just out of sight. If his predictions were correct...ah, here we go.

"Mycroft." Greg coughed. "Er, hypothetically, of course...how do you feel about marriage? Just the concept in general, I mean."

Shuffling noises as Myc prepared his response. "I used to view it as tedious to tie oneself to one person in such a way, but I believe if the _right_ person came along I could be amenable. Why do you ask?"

"No reason. Just curious." Greg's voice had just a touch of disappointment to it. Hamish made a small moan of frustration into his cupcake. _You idiot, you caught him off guard! Of course he's not going to respond with declarations of undying adoration, you know him, you barely gave him warning enough to think through the question, let alone formulate a well-thought-out answer!_

Hamish waited a few seconds - couldn't reappear too close to that exchange without raising suspicion - before taking another bite for theatrics' sake and coming out from behind the wall. He didn't say anything, as was his habit, and sat down to finish. The tension between the two was noticeably thicker than when he left.

_Operation Uncle Greg: Day 3_

_NOTE TO SELF: REMEMBER THE SCIENCE CENTER. REMEMBER IT. So have we progressed or regressed? Could be either, could be both. I think it'll end well, though._

*****************************

The fourth day dawned chilly and bright, a marvelous day to explore that creek in the back of the property. Hamish donned a coat, packed a sandwich, found a stout stick and set off.

He was taking a break from his mission for today. He wasn't sure how much he was manipulating them, and how much he was simply nudging along things that were already there, that had been there for far too long. He didn't know how much of the thrill he felt when plotting his next move was genuine excitement for the two of them and how much was pride at his own ability to manipulate. Myc almost doubtless knew what he was doing, but wasn't complaining. For reasons unknown Myc was intent on not being the one to pop the question, so he let Hamish have his little social experiment. And honestly, the whole family would be happier when they were finally married.

The banks of the creek dipped down in a sharp rocky slope that Hamish didn't think much of attempting to climb. He walked until the grade wasn't so steep or so high and scrambled down, landing with a small splash in the shallow water. Silvery iridescent minnows scattered before his booted feet, and a snake slithered into the bushes in a panic.

He sloshed over to a flat, sunny rock and sat down to eat. The place would look amazing in winter - a proper wonderland, with snow hanging off the trees and lengths of ice broad enough to skate on, if it was thick enough.

Hamish finished, dusted off his hands and stood up. There was another reason he was out here, one he hadn't told Greg or Uncle Myc. He needed to know if he could do this. He gathered a small pile of twigs and dry leaves, placed his hands over it, and concentrating fiercely, searched through the back of his mind for that elusive feeling of _spark._

Off and on, since about age five, he had started creating very slight, very occasional bursts of heat, or sometimes flame if he was lucky. It was nearly impossible to tell when or how they came, but he was trying to teach himself to control them. If it was a good day, if he concentrated hard, he might be able to produce a few sparks. The Doctor said it was progress.

It was a good day. Hamish concentrated.

And concentrated.

He felt something in the back of his mind, and chased it. But it slipped away like sand - and was gone.

Oh well. Hamish dismantled the pile, picked up his stick, slipped on a rock, and fell in.

_Operation Uncle Greg, Day 4_

_Note to self: Come back when it snows. My balance failed me today - it's usually so impeccable, I don't know what happened. Well, the rock happened, and water on said rock. Water is annoying and should stay out of my way - stupid sentence, shut up. It was cold being wet, but I waited until Uncle Myc and Greg were done kissing to come in. I think that's a good sign?_

****************************

 _Conrad's Fate?_ Check.

 _Gathering Blue?_ Check.

 _Mossflower?_ Check.

"I'm ready. Let's go."

The Diogenes Club was such a _good_ idea, mused Hamish in the car. Enforced silence and peace to read? Effectively forbidding socialization? Sheer brilliance!

Czechoslovakia was really throwing a wrench into this week, along with the murder of a dignitary preventing Greg from being able to stay at home with Hamish. So Hamish and Uncle Myc were off to the Diogenes Club, where Myc hoped to get some work done regarding whether the two events were linked and Hamish would likely finish a few books.

"You may sit in my private study as I work and watch or help me if you so choose, or you may sit with the older gentlemen and read. I'm sure I don't need to remind you to keep silent."

"I wouldn't talk anyway. I think I'll read."

"Excellent. I should be done by five."

Hamish leaned forward and rested an elbow on the edge of Myc's seat. "So you saw what Greg was planning to do after the case was solved?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean." There was a note of amusement in Uncle Myc's voice. "Care to explain?"

"He was going to pick something up when it was over with - something he didn't want either of is around for. Something small, but costs a lot of money. Something he was nervous about, but excited."

It was definitely a smirk now. "Interesting theory. I suppose we'll see."

"We'll see." Hamish smiled back. "We'll see."

And then the chauffeur was pulling into the driveway of the club, and the wheels were crunching on gravel as they slowed to a stop. Hamish hopped out almost as excitedly as he had at the Science Center, clutching his books to his chest, and followed his uncle in.

They parted ways shortly. Hamish made straight for a squashy green armchair next to a window. He drew many strange stares from the myriad old men trying to understand what this scruffy 10-year-old (although that could have just been his hair) in the bright plaid shirt thought he was doing marching into their silent little congregation as if he belonged. A few of them were ready to push the button to call for the staff. But Hamish didn't give them the satisfaction of being disruptive, instead curling up double on the chair and opening _Conrad's Fate._ He loved this book. He loved this author. Diana Wynne Jones was perfect, and this story was perfect, and what a perfect place to be.

It started to rain. Could things get any more perfect?

Hamish experienced blissful perfection for a few blissful hours. He finished _Conrad's Fate_ and most of _Gathering Blue_ before Uncle Myc appeared and tapped him lightly on the shoulder as a signal to leave. None of the gentlemen even glanced up as he went - in their curious way, they had accepted him into the group.

When they got home Greg had made dinner. He was more cheerful than usual and not, despite what he said, just because he had managed to solve the case without Sherlock.

_Operation Uncle Greg, Day 5_

_Tomorrow. That's when we'll see if my little nudging can convince people to do things. I feel like an enchanter. I might live at the Diogenes Club when I'm older - is that even an option? It should be. Note to self: get more Diana Wynne Jones and also Messenger (by Lowry)._

****************************

The sun was setting, and Hamish was going home after a long, lazy day of watching movies and playing Cluedo at the mansion. It was a good way to end a good week.

But Greg was getting nervous, because the day was far from over. They pulled up beside 221b, and Hamish hopped out. Greg parked and got out as well, heading around the back to help Hamish with the luggage.

Which of course Hamish, being psychokinetic, did not need. He already had his trunk halfway out and in the air. With one final tug, he turned his attention to Greg and it thunked onto the ground.

"You're going to propose tonight, aren't you?" Hamish whispered.

Greg nodded hesitantly. "Don't even know why I'm telling you."

"I'm an interested party, one you know fairly well, so why not? Best of luck."

"Right. Thanks." Greg shut the boot of the car slightly louder than necessary.

"Bye, then," said Hamish, opening the door to the flat.

"Bye."

Greg leaned against the car for a few moments before rejoining Mycroft. He put it in gear and drove away.

It wasn't long before Mycroft noticed that they weren't going a route he was familiar with. "I was under the impression that I was the one who kidnapped people, Gregory."

"Yeah, we're going out to dinner tonight." Greg turned to grin at his boyfriend. "Thought I'd surprise you, what do you say?"

Mycroft chuckled, in his way that Greg found absolutely adorable. "I would love that."

Greg's smile grew, as did the already-sizable butterflies in his stomach. He tried to keep his hands from trembling on the wheel, but knew that it was probably pointless.

Finally they reached the restaurant. It was fancier than Greg was used to, but he knew Mycroft would like it. And he was right, he thought, basking in the satisfaction of seeing Mycroft's face light up as soon as they pulled in.

Once they got out, Greg offered Mycroft his hand - if Mycroft somehow didn't pick up that this was more special than usual, he must have now, because they rarely showed this much affection in public - and they walked into the restaurant arm-in-arm.

"Reservation for two, under 'Holmes,'" said Greg to the waiter at the door.

"Right this way, sir," replied the waiter, and led them to their table.

Much of the menu was unfamiliar to Greg (and some of it was in French), so Mycroft helped him with ordering. They talked about Czechoslovakia and laughed at inside jokes and held hands across the table, and Greg was ready. Nervous, but ready.

"I'll be right back," he said when the food was nearly gone, and went to find a restroom.

Greg stood in front of the sink and breathed deeply. He splashed some cold water on his face and took the small box out of his pocket.

It was a simple ring, but beautiful and shining, made of silver with a simple _I love you_ engraved on the inside. In most light it was subtle but there - Mycroft wouldn't want anything overly flashy - but if the light hit it at a certain angle, it was dazzling. He lifted it up to his face and saw a minuscule, warped picture of himself staring back with a worried expression.

A toilet flushed, and another man came out of a stall behind him. He saw the box in his hand and smiled. "Good luck, mate!"

Greg looked up, shutting the box abruptly. "Oh. Er, thanks."

The man winked and began washing his hands. "Hope she says yes!"

"Yeah." Greg put the box away and smiled slightly. "Yeah, thanks. I think he will."

Then, taking a deep breath, he opened the door of the bathroom and left.

Mycroft watched him as he returned to their table and sat down. "Gregory, you're looking pale. Is everything alright?"

"Yes. I'm fine." Greg smiled weakly and took a deep breath. "Actually, I'm not fine. My heart is pounding, I'm sweating, my stomach is tickling like you wouldn't believe...I'm scared, Mycroft."

"You're scared?" Mycroft was leaned forward across the table, eyes focused on Greg's. His hands were clasped on the table in front of him.

"Yeah, I'm terrified." Greg shook his head, still smiling faintly. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. I know I shouldn't be so scared. But I love you, and I don't want to mess this up."

Mycroft swallowed and nodded.

In one fluid movement, Greg slid out of his chair and onto one knee. He pulled the box out of his pocket and popped it open. "Mycroft, will you marry me?"

Mycroft's face split into an incredibly rare, almost unheard-of beaming smile. "Yes...Yes, of course I will! _Yes!"_

The whole restaurant, which had been watching in silence, burst spontaneously into applause. Greg slid the ring onto Mycroft's finger and Mycroft pulled him up, kissing him hard for all to see. At some point, Greg started laughing and couldn't seem to stop, and at some point shortly after Mycroft joined in. A waiter brought out complimentary champagne, and the world was beautiful and shining.

*************************

_Operation Uncle Greg: post-operation note_

_Went to a case today. Greg was ecstatic, could hardly focus on the body. I'm laughing imagining Grandmummy and Granddaddy's reactions - maybe Christmas dinners will be more bearable now? This mission is marked an unequivocal SUCCESS._


	12. Age 11: Crisis

Hamish tried not to cry on the bus - he was already getting looks, sniffing and wiping his nose, clutching the crumpled exam paper with a trembling hand. How? _How_ had he allowed this to happen? What was wrong with his stupid, _stupid_ mind? He hunched further into his seat. Curious, kindly strangers were glancing over with concern on their faces. Hamish crunched the paper to his chest so they didn't see, didn't see what an _idiot_ he had somehow permitted himself to be.

Most people wouldn't care. Most people would see the paper, and think he was being a pathetic drama queen for reacting so extremely - and maybe he was, because he needed another label to fit into after "genius" became obsolete. Most people, he knew, most children, would accept this, and move on with their bland, unthinking, _unknowing_ lives. But he wasn't most people.

A shudder ran through him. He couldn't be.

Hamish needed to make a plan, to know if he could still do _something_ , at least. He'd probably fail at this as well, he was _horrible_. He wasn't ready to tell Dad, couldn't face the pounding shame that his mind would churn out of its own accord (that, in fact, it already was), and the thought of facing Father was too painful to think about. He had let them down. He knew they wouldn't be angry, they probably wouldn't even be disappointed, but that was because they were phenomenal parents and _he had let them down_. How dare he. How dare he.

The TARDIS was here, having been landed badly in need of repair four days ago, now nonchalantly parked on the street corner outside 221B. The little blue box was littered with scorch marks and the top light had been shattered, but the inside was healing well and hadn't even needed to regenerate. Hamish had a key, of course, and the Doctor would likely be off in the twisting depths of his ship or up in the flat. The best thing to do, he decided, was to not go into 221B at all, but to escape into the TARDIS and run until the world outside was no longer relevant.

Hamish gathered his things and moved to the front of the bus. He had been taking public transport to and from school since age 8, and got a few looks due to his lack of parental supervision, but he couldn't help thinking that they knew what had happened and were all silently judging him. He knew this simply wasn't true, of course, but the level to which these traitorous thoughts were clogging his mind made him understand, for the first time, why Father had lived so much of his life walled away from his emotions.

The bus wheezed to a stop outside his two homes. Hamish shouldered his pack and climbed off the bus, not making eye contact with the driver (he never did, but this time it was intentional). He found the key in his pocket, clicked it into the lock, and pushed the door open without a sound. _Please, let the Doctor not be in._

Nothing. No sound but the occasional clicks and beeps and hums of the console as the ship slowly repaired, no movement except for the central pillar's glowing core moving up, and down, its simple motion somehow soothing and hypnotizing. Hamish breathed a sigh of relief.

He entered the TARDIS fully and closed the door behind him. His indigo Converse made tiny clangs on the metal floor as he jogged over to the console, scrabbling for that big ball of twine tied around one of the levers that was effectively his leash. Not really a leash, that was a bad term for it. More like his Ariadne string, preventing him from losing his way in the hazardous labyrinth of this ship. He found it wound snugly around a lever, gave it a tug to ensure its security, and fled.

It was a bad idea to be in the TARDIS without knowing where you were going. That much seemed obvious, even with the string. And yet that was just what Hamish was doing now, jogging down corridor after winding corridor with the string clutched in his hand, tears appearing as stubbornly as he wiped them away, his feet slowly accelerating until he was sprinting blindly through the maze, and it felt so, so good to channel some of that rage and helplessness and shame and fear into the repetitive violent motion of striking the floor and running _faster_. He didn't want to stop, this was good. This was progress. He didn't want to stop and face what he knew it was ultimately pointless to run from. He ran and ran until he simply couldn't anymore, feeling sick to his stomach, heart pumping and breathing loud. Then he opened the door of the first dark room he came to, ducked in, slammed the door behind him, leaned against the wall, sank to the floor and burst into tears.

What would Mr. Prefect think of him? Hamish was his star student, who never missed an answer in class and always got his papers back with a smiley-face sticker and a little note saying _Great job!_ in the corner. (And Hamish remembered ther hadn't been a note this time, and cried harder.) He was slipping! What was wrong? Was something wrong? _(No! No! I have no excuse! I'm just stupid!)_ He'd be disappointed, and that _hurt!_

What would his classmates say? (In a way, that thought terrified Hamish most of all.) What would they think? They would judge him, too, and not be so polite and subtle! He would lose so much status among them, because he was nothing without their respect and awe in the world of the classroom, just some friendless freak left to sink in the churning waters of classroom anonymity...

A knock on the door, a spike of panic through Hamish's stomach. It was the Doctor, and if Hamish knew the Doctor (which after 11 years he hoped he did) there wasn't anything to say that would prevent him from entering. It wasn't like he trusted his voice, anyway, so Hamish swallowed thickly and prayed for some miracle that would make him go away.

No such luck. Hamish wasn't sure what he had been expecting. The Doctor opened the door, and the resulting flood of warm yellow corridor light made Hamish blink and press his face into his curled-up knees.

The Doctor crouched down and did not touch him. "Hey."

Hamish sniffed. "I'm having a crisis."

"Yeah, it seemed like it to me. Want to talk about it?"

"Not really!" Hamish's voice went shrill and high, and he winced.

The Doctor moved to sit down beside him, back to the smooth metal wall and throwing Hamish's right side into shadow. "I'll wait until you're ready, then."

It was a bit harder to cry right next to someone, with light shining through his eyelids and destroying any illusion of solitude. Hamish tried for a few minutes but soon gave up. He had gotten a lot of it out already, it seemed. He looked up, staring straight ahead, and the Doctor offered him a handkerchief from his peripheral vision. Hamish accepted it, sighed and leaned his head back.

"So what's wrong?" asked the Doctor. He reached out and gently teased the crumpled, wet exam paper from between Hamish's unresisting fingers. "Is it about this?"

"What else would it be about?" Hamish's voice was a low, gravelly monotone.

The Doctor flattened the paper out on his knees. His brows furrowed with understanding. "Right. I see."

A fresh wave of shame washed through Hamish. "I don't know what happened," he said weakly. "I feel so _stupid!_ And I know I'm not, technically, but I just can't _help_ it!" His voice found strength to crack at the end.

"I know. I understand. I still think you're smart, and I still love you. We still love you. Okay?"

"NO, IT'S NOT! IT'S NOT OKAY!" yelled Hamish, and the floodgates broke.

"I know you still love me! I know you love me unconditionally, and I think you are amazing for that! I know there are other kids who can't seem to do enough for their parents, whose parents only care about them when they get the highest grades and shun them when they don't, and I feel so entitled and spoiled and _guilty_ for feeling like this! But I can't turn it off, I need to be perfect, and I know no human can realistically expect that but it seemed to be working up until this point! And - and now that this has happened it's like everything else I've ever done is worthless! It doesn't count because it wasn't _now_ and I don't know if I can replicate it and I'm scared if I can't, and this means my record is _destroyed_ , I've messed everything up and it's all my fault and I'm so _stupid!"_

"You are not stupid."

"Yes I am!"

"Hamish, you're _not._ You cannot realistically say that."

"No, I know, obviously if you compare me to others my age - say, my classmates - I'm brilliant. I'm a genius. Or - I was." Hamish gave a wet sob into his knees. "I'm not anymore!"

The Doctor's eyebrows lifted. "Oh," he said quietly.

 _"Oh?"_ responded Hamish scathingly.

"You're afraid."

Hamish was silent for a long while, a sudden cascade of thoughts triggered by those two words.

"Yeah," he said, in the quiet tone of someone recovering from a rapid bout of self-discovery.

"You're afraid of what we'll think, unconsciously. You're afraid of letting down the ones whose opinion matters most to you."

"Obviously," said Hamish, disappointed.

"But...you're also afraid of something else, aren't you? You're afraid that you'll lose yourself."

Hamish nodded slowly. "That's it. That's it exactly. Because...I've been thinking, it feels to me that without my mind, without my ability to do what others cannot..." He swallowed and looked to the side. "Well, what am I?"

The Doctor scooted close enough to, hesitantly, put an arm around Hamish, who tensed slightly but didn't move. "Your brain isn't everything you are, Hamish. Your personality, your _self_ \- all that is much more important than your intelligence and knowledge."

"No, you don't understand!" said Hamish sharply. "I keep thinking you do, but then you don't! My brain _is_ my self. Almost every conscious thought that makes up me is filtered through and influenced by my intellect and my intellect's...perception of the world. It's like - " He fished for words. "It's like loading all of your important files onto a computer, then worrying about a having a glitch corrupt all your data."

The Doctor blinked, then sucked in a slow breath. "Ohhhh. I think I understand it now."

"Really."

"You're afraid of becoming ordinary."

Hamish closed his eyes, then responded slowly and quietly. "That is, I believe, my deepest fear."

The Doctor gave his shoulder a small squeeze, and Hamish collapsed in to lean against him. "Everybody I see every day...at school, at crime scenes, on the street...bland, unthinking, unnoticing, going about their tepid lives hardly aware of each other, needing everything funneled into their minds with loud words and bright colors and shock value...they scare me. And becoming one of them..." Hamish rested his head on the Doctor's shoulder. "The thought is a nightmare."

"I frankly think your father would be able to identify with that more than me," the Doctor murmured.

"Yeah, I know. But saying this was oddly freeing anyway."

"Should we go find him?"

"Maybe not quite yet."

"Mmm. Did you notice the TARDIS made a new room for you?"

Hamish looked around the tiny closet-sized space with new interest. "No, what? Really?"

"You can tell by her rings around the doors. See this?" The Doctor ran his fingers over a series of stretch mark-like lines by the doorframe that looked as if they had been drawn with a dull graphite pencil. Hamish craned his neck to see.

"See how dark the lines are, and how close to the threshold? That's how you can tell she just made this. I can show you with some of the rooms she's regrowing that we lost in the crash. Want to do that?"

"Sure." Hamish got to his feet and moved over to brush his fingers across the gray rings, visibly fascinated. The Doctor stood up, folded the exam paper twice and put it in his pocket.

Hamish glanced over at the crinkling sound. Then he walked out of the room to investigate the marks from another angle.

The Doctor joined him, knowing that they both knew that Hamish knew where the paper was. "And then after that how about we return you to 221B?"

Hamish looked back over his shoulder. His eyes sparkled as peculiarly as the day he was born. "Okay."


	13. Age 12: Invasion

_Subject description: 2.7 grams white mud with high clay content. Obtained from boots of suspect apprehended at crime scene - mud not native to area. Streaked with brown dirt from crime scene - wet enough to attract dust despite the fact that there has been no rain there for the past three days._

Sherlock was content.

The case was a 9. He was on the verge of stumped (not that he'd ever admit that, of course), but it was nothing nicking a couple extra materials from forensics and the morgue couldn't fix. It was lovely to feel his brain working for once, a rare mood in which he reveled in the simple pleasure of mulling over a problem at his leisure until a sudden, equally satisfying mental starburst of a breakthrough was made.

_Addition of 1 ml of my own blood (type B positive) creates a 70% similar to compound found in victim's hair, albeit dried. Other compounds found include non-cigarette ash, melted plastic, and dried blood._

His pen scratching on the notepad and the occasional shuffle of John's paper were the only noises. Hamish would be home from school within the hour, eager to assist him. He was a remarkably competent lab assistant - had been since year one. His psyke was steadier than any hand, although he had twice set the kitchen table on fire when startled.

Sherlock retrieved a small phial from his bag of commandeered evidence, containing a few coarse white hairs. He held them up to the light and squinted, counting on muscle memory to keep his notes legible.

_Small number of short white hairs found at crime scene - match neither victim not suspect. Some animal, perhaps? Visual analysis sugge –_

There was a sudden clatter of knocking at the door, causing Sherlock's pen to skid across the page, leaving a thick black score through his notes. He cursed under his breath and stood up roughly, stomping over to the door and flinging it open. "What."

"Hello, Sherlock," said Lestrade.

Sherlock's eyes widened marginally as he took in Lestrade, standing at the head of Anderson, Donovan, Dimmock and a whole contingency of policemen that somehow managed to all fit comfortably on the landing. "Oh God no."

"You stole nine tenths of our evidence, Sherlock," said Lestrade, arms crossed. "We actually need most of that to solve the case."

"You think you'd have been able to solve this case even with it?" Sherlock scoffed. "Trust me; I'm putting it to much better use than you ever could."

John, having lived with Sherlock long enough to sense the beginnings of a commotion from miles away, roused himself abruptly and came to stand near the door. "What do you need from us, Lestrade?" he asked, placing a hand placatingly on Sherlock's arm.

"We need that evidence. And we're not going to leave until we get it, you can count on that. So I think either we can take it back to the labs and have it analysed like it should have been before, or you can let us in and tell us what you've figured out already."

Sherlock subjected Lestrade to his best death glare until it became apparent that it would have no effect, and that Lestrade's calm, steely gaze was in fact defeating it. The detective huffed and stepped aside grudgingly.

"Hamish isn't going to like this," he muttered as the forensics team shuffled into the flat, crowding around the kitchen table like penguins. One lifted Sherlock's petri dish up to face level and set it down quickly in a fit of coughing.

"No, he's not," John agreed. "Let's get it over with."

*******************************

John was right. He usually was about their child.

Hamish, statuelike and prickly on the threshold of his home, was the very epitome of not amused. He had quickly bypassed the shocked-and-disoriented phase and was now observing the proceedings with tightly crossed arms and a face of sullen frustration. _Abrasive. Bumbling. Clamorous, dull, extraneous - Father._

He blinked out of his disgruntled abecedarian stupor to glance up at Sherlock, who had slipped away from the muddled cacophony to have a word.

"What are they doing here." When he was anxious, Hamish had a habit of not pronouncing questions as questions.

"Trust me, I want them here as much as you do. I'm sorry, I'm trying to fix it and I know you haven't had a very good day. I'll try to solve the case and get them out as soon as possible, but until then, I think the living room's quieter."

It was quieter in the living room, if not by much. Hamish felt distressingly out of his element for being in a place he had always viewed as a haven. The noise was like a flood, invading and deluging the entire flat, and Hamish wondered if it was possible to drown in its clueless discord. He certainly couldn't focus enough to properly read a book. With a sigh, he rifled through his backpack and took out his homework.

"Put that down! Nobody touch anything!" Sherlock roared. His mood hadn't gotten any less stormy, and the forecast showed no clear skies ahead. Why did people have to touch everything - specifically, _his_ things? Couldn't they see that some things were better left _alone?_ These experiments all had varying degrees of volatility; it was a matter of time before something exploded!

Anderson was poking at a gently sizzling spleen, sitting in a frying pan on the stove and bothering no one. "What is this? Are you _cooking_ this?" he said, disgusted. "What are you now, Hannibal?"

John darted over and snatched the wooden spoon out of Anderson's hand. "That's his most important experiment, _Phillip,_ and if you compare my husband to a sociopathic cannibal one more time I will personally remove you from the premises. I understand that Sherlock shouldn't have taken all that evidence, but could you at least find it in yourself to be civil?" He brandished the spoon at Anderson, who backed off with a muttered "sorry."

Sherlock glanced away from his conversation with Lestrade to mouth "thank you" and motion John over.

When John arrived at his side with the spoon still held loosely in his hand, Sherlock was again talking with the DI. "Tell me, Garth, what _exactly_ will it take to get your people out of my flat?"

"First of all, there is _no way_ you don't know my name by now. You went to my wedding, for God's sake! If your goal is to be annoying, trust me, it's working."

"We're a little tense today, aren't we, Gabriel? Have you and my brother been fighting? No, that's not it; it's something related to your work. Frustrating case? No, all cases are frustrating to you. What could - "

"You literally stole nine tenths of the evidence, Sherlock," said Lestrade flatly.

"Oh. Right." Sherlock nodded thoughtfully. Dimmock burned his fingers on the lit Bunsen burner and hissed.

"Sherlock." John took his husband gently by the arm. "Before anyone breaks something irreparable, let's try and work on this case, shall we?"

Hamish signed his homework with a flourish and let out an exasperated sigh of relief. Maybe now they could _shut up_... His hands were hot. He tried fanning them through the air, to no avail.

Then they started talking again. He groaned and covered his face with a pillow. His head hurt and his hands throbbed. Today hadn't been the best day, Father had deduced correctly - a misplaced student ID meant no lunch, and a substitute teacher meant chaos in the classroom. He felt heavy and tired - not nap-tired, but drained-tired - and his stomach felt like it had resorted to digesting itself. On top of that, there were loud obnoxious people in his house, and it seemed like he was coming down with a fever...honestly, they just needed to _leave,_ to _get out_... He hoped Father would solve the case soon. He would go over and take part in it, but he was definitely not in the most helpful of moods and loathe to leave the couch.

How London had ever survived without him, Sherlock had no idea - and after he retired to keep bees with John in a few decades he expected it would descend into a lawless dystopia. Unless Hamish followed in his footsteps (which seemed unlikely, as he was already leaning heavily toward a career in neurosurgery), London was effectively doomed.

The only thing preventing him from allowing all this to escape from his mouth in a tirade against the ignorance of the general police force was John's hand, still clasped mollifyingly around his upper arm. Strange how similar physical touches could have such differing effects depending on - "Watch it!" he snapped, as a passing inspector bumped his other arm.

Lestrade had a page of case notes in one hand and was arguing with Sherlock over the kitchen table. "I see the point in all this, but what I don't understand is if this is his seventh murder, how come we haven't linked any of these before? Serial killers almost always follow a pattern - they target college students, or people who work at one shop, or those that, I don't know, talk too loudly on the bus..."

"I remember that case. Great fun," says Sherlock distractedly. "Now where was I? Oh yes. You see, Lestrade, but will you ever observe? They are connected. They all were strangers the killer's dog didn't take kindly to petting him." He smirked at Lestrade's stunned expression.

"You're _sure_?"

"Of course."

"But...just _how_?"

"It's only a hypothesis for now - 89% of my hypotheses do turn out to be correct, but that's beside the - "

_"Dads?!"_ The sheer urgency in the cry was enough to shut Sherlock up immediately, and he and John both bolted to the doorway of the living room.

"Everybody - everybody be quiet," shrilled Hamish, voice cracking awkwardly as a byproduct of puberty and stress.

His hands were cupped in front of him. Suspended above them, not quite close enough to burn, was a magnificent two-foot column of flame, casting strange shadows on the walls of the flat. It flickered gently as Hamish breathed, mouth open, wondering at his creation. It seemed to burn nothing but air, and for a few eternal seconds the world itself was transfixed in its impossible brightness.

Then Anderson fainted. Things inevitably went downhill from there.

At the sound of the accompanying loud thunk, Hamish's concentration was broken and the flame disappeared. His stomach let out a sudden deafening protest and he sprang to his feet and lunged to the kitchen, thinking only of food. People were stumbling away from him in fear and Sally had started screaming, but everything faded to a dim distraction overwhelmed by his hunger.

He yanked open the fridge and the fish floated out subconsciously to drift around his head as he searched for - _where is it - please let us not be out_ \- there - his hand clamped around the custard carton, which opened by itself, and he allowed the fish box to rip itself open as he clattered through the cupboards looking for a bowl - here - the custard emptied sloppily into the dish and clinked gently on the table. Hamish scrabbled in the box for a still-frozen fish finger, dunked it in the custard, and shoved way too much in his mouth. He closed his eyes, sure he could feel his energy returning already. And with it came a realization.

_They're all looking at me, aren't they._

Hamish mentally wilted. Unless they had all fainted (as he suspected Sally had, due to the lack of any noise at all), there were right now many, many pairs of eyes directly on him. They probably thought he was possessed...he really wanted to keep his eyes closed...

The floor creaked - D, then A sharp. Someone was behind him, and based on the amount of weight needed to create those tones, it was probably Dad.

"That...was beautiful."

Yep. Hamish let out a breath and opened his eyes. His headache was gone and his hands were perfectly cool.

"What was that?" asked Dimmock shrilly. "I mean, it can't have been real. Right. What _was_ that? Are you some kind of magician?"

Hamish swallowed. "Can you all just...get out of my home, please? I need to eat."

"Lestrade, I think it would be best for you to go," murmured John. "And your team. The case is near solved, anyway."

Lestrade coughed. "You're right. Come on, let's get out of here." He waited until the last officer had numbly filed out, then turned to John and Sherlock and spoke in a hushed voice. "What do I tell them?"

John shrugged. "The truth. I'm surprised we kept it a secret this long."

The DI nodded. "I'll call you in a few days. Will Hamish be okay?"

"I think so. We'll ask the Doctor, of course, but I think it's just natural Tenza development. I'm very proud of him, actually. He's been working hard on his pyrokinesis."

"Tell him congratulations from me...I need to go. Wish me luck, eh?"

"Right, good luck then. See you."

John closed the door and leaned against it. "That was great, Hamish! I'm so impressed! How do you feel...Hamish?"

"He's asleep, John," said Sherlock, smiling fondly. Hamish was slumped over at the kitchen table, mercifully having avoided the custard with his face. The two decided not to disturb him. The fact that today had happened meant that he deserved the rest.


	14. Age 13: Milestone

Hamish had never realized how very annoying the tik-tik-tik of his mobile's touchscreen keyboard was until now. How had _that_ happened? If there was ever something subtle to be annoyed about, nine times out of ten Hamish was the first one to be annoyed about it. He exited the email he was writing and turned off the noise. Maybe it was the fact that he'd had this phone for less than a month, and there had always been too much background noise for him to notice? Maybe it clashed enough with the sound of Dad's typing, recording their latest case from his chair on the other side of the room, to be unpleasant? Either way, he was glad it was gone.

_Hamish was able to start a fire in the ceiling [replace with a plausible explanation before publishing to blog] which made the sprinklers and the fire alarm go off, causing the jaguar to panic and allowing us to escape. One of the smugglers ran outside into the waiting arms of the police force, one hasn't been seen since and is presumed dead. The jaguar was -_

_Ping_. John stopped typing and looked over to check his email - message from Hamish.

"This your birthday list?"

"Yep," Hamish replied, not bothering to look up.

"Glad you finally finished. You only left us three days to get anything!"

"You have access to a time machine," said Hamish mildly.

John clicked open the attached Word file. He smiled slightly as he looked over its contents, letting out a small huff of laughter at the end.

Hamish craned his neck back across the arm of the sofa to peer at John upside-down. His two-toned curls flopped back from over his eyes. "What?"

"Nothing, just... It's very obvious that this is _your_ list. I think we should be able to manage this. But, er...that last one..?"

"You read that correctly, yes. What, don't you think it would be fun?"

"It'll be interesting, that's for sure."

"Yeah. Fun. Interesting. About the same thing." Hamish righted himself and the flat was quiet until Sherlock somehow came home from shopping with six cartons of milk instead of two.

*************************

It would be a small affair - only Dad, Father, the Doctor and Mrs. Hudson, not enough people to be overwhelming in the small flat. The cake would be storebought chocolate - or that had been the plan, until Mrs. Hudson had intervened. Now Hamish could smell his present baking from his room, and it was glorious.

He was just performing a few final checks before the "party" began downstairs, where Dad and Father were finishing with getting ready. Underlying the decadent cake scent was a sharp odor of new paint, but Hamish tapped the wall and aside from a slight stickiness the new black coat was dry. Everything essential was either moved out of the room or covered with plastic. Hamish smiled, hands on hips. It looked good. It looked brilliant! He laughed out loud and twirled with excitement.

The only things missing that would make this scene perfect were corporeal cake and the Doctor - coincidentally, it was the absence of these things that was preventing the celebration from starting. Hamish bounced downstairs and put on Owl City, his favorite new discovery, to set the mood. Dreams and Disasters began to stream from his phone's matching Bluetooth speaker, just slightly too loud to be uncomfortable. Now, was the cake done yet, or what?

By his calculations, it really should be. Maybe he could be the one to take it out - no oven mitts necessary. He raced downstairs and burst into Mrs. Hudson's kitchen. "Is it ready?!"

"I've just taken it out, dear," said the elderly landlady, gesturing to the steaming chocolate loaf of decadence resting on a cooling rack. "But you can take it upstairs, if you like - Hamish, be careful!"

"I haven't dropped anything since I was six, Mrs. Hudson!" Hamish laughed, sweeping the cake up with his mind and floating it out the door. He kept his gaze fixed on it - as his powers blossomed, it had become apparent that his psyke was channeled through his eyes. He needed to be able to visually track something to move it. Conversely, pyro was channeled through his hands. Snapping his fingers, pointing, or cupping his hands made it easier to produce fire.

As Hamish slid the cake smoothly onto the kitchen table, nudging equipment and experiments out of the way to make room, a gust of wind blew his hair into his face. The balloons tied to chairs and table legs bumped against each other and became horribly tangled. A sound like an incompetent monkey playing a violin with a hacksaw came with it out of nowhere. Hamish beamed and swept his hair out of his face, launching into a tackle hug as soon as the blue box's door creaked open.

"About _time!_ " he exclaimed into Doctor's coat. "Where were you? You're the last to show up!"

"A Time Lord is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to," the Doctor smiled. "And don't the rest of you live here, or something?"

"Fair point. Let's have cake."

Cake was delicious and quickly gone. Hamish had the privilege of both lighting and blowing out the candles - the lighting part took a few minutes, but he accepted no offers of help.

Finally, it was time for presents. Hamish was bouncing happily in his seat, excited for both the current event and what was planned afterward. Dad had been casting suspicious glances at Father's conspicuously jar-shaped gift all day, looking at it like it was something that under normal circumstances would never be allowed out of the morgue. Hamish lived with the two. It probably was. Which was why he reached for Dad's comparatively mundane gift-wrapped box first.

He ripped off the wrappings and promptly rescinded the "mundane" label. _Eragon. The Astronomer's Guide to the Cosmos (with Color Pictures Taken from the Hubble Telescope). Your Brain: A Complete User's Manual. Ender's Game._

"Oh. Oh, this is _fantastic_!" He giggled breathlessly. "Dad, this is _amazing_!"

"I thought you'd like it," Dad grinned.

"Yeah, you were right, you were very right indeed..." Hamish cracked open _Ender's Game_ , pressed his nose to its seam and inhaled. "I won't be bored for at least three days."

John chuckled. For Hamish, that was an accomplishment.

The Doctor's gift, wrapped in paper decorated with unfamiliar constellations that almost seemed to move when you looked at them out of the corner of your eye, was a curious device made of glass and metal he claimed was a combination microscope and telescope. Hamish wasn't sure where to put his eye, so he set it aside to focus on the Doctor's other present, a bag of Pyropan rainbow tastebombs the size of his head.

"Excellent! Now I'll be on a sugar high for the rest of the afternoon!" Hamish popped a handful in his mouth and reached for his final, most mysterious present. It was wrapped in plain blue paper, and was heavy and sloshed slightly.

"Card first," urged Father, and Hamish tore open the envelope fixed to the top of the gift to find a handmade birthday card from all of his parental figures and three slips of paper. He unfolded one of the slips and broke into a grin. _This paper entitles Hamish William Holmes-Watson to one free day away from that daily torment many children know as "school." This is because he can no longer be fully called a child, and for this he deserves a reward. Congratulations on making 13. Love, Father._

"YESSSS!" Hamish pumped his fist and let out a whoop. " _Brilliant_!"

"Sleep in until noon, help with cases, hang out in the library. Your choice," Father smiled.

"Just - be responsible with it. Don't miss any big tests or anything." added Dad.

"No, of course not. That would be stupid," Hamish replied distractedly, pulling the last gift closer to get a good angle. Father tended to put too much paper on his presents, and as a result opening them became a bit of a quest. But Hamish was determined not to take the easy way out with psyke. He set to it with his fingernails.

It was a jar, yes, this Hamish could tell by the two-inch rip he'd made in the wrapping. Filled with turquoise preserving fluid, it looked like. He peeled the jar like a hard-boiled egg, and when enough of the papery sheath was gone to see inside he gasped with delight. "Is it human?"

"Really, Sherlock." Dad looked somewhat sickened. "Is it human?"

"Chimpanzee, I'm afraid," said Father as Hamish lifted the jar up to the light, peering in at the whole brain. "However, the structure is close enough that it should be a passable replacement."

"I've never examined a primate's brain before!" exclaimed Hamish. "I know what I'm doing this weekend!"

"Marvelous," Dad said dryly.

"I know," said Father.

Hamish set the brain on the table and glanced between the three of them. "Now what? Let's go upstairs?"

"Yeah, I think we're ready. Let's do it!" said Dad. They got up from the table and went up to Hamish's room for a game of Gallifreyan paintball.

One of Hamish's birthday requests had been a new look for his room, black walls splattered with the remnants a family paintball fight. Ordinary paintball was a bit too warlike for Dad, however, so the Doctor had come forward and suggested an alternative version from his youth. The paint was contained in small squishy pouches that exploded on impact, so the game resembled nothing more than an exceptionally messy snowball fight.

Hamish quickly formed an alliance with the Doctor. His psychokinetic defensive skills and the Doctor's ease and experience made a combination that Dad and Father were hard-pressed to defeat. The focus wasn't on competition, though, and nobody got out. What would be the point? There were only four players. Laughter and loud, almost comedic _splats_ were heard throughout 221b. Mrs. Hudson, who had declined to take part in the battle due to her hip, chuckled and murmured "Boys, boys!" in her flat downstairs.

Hamish had green paint in his hair. Blue was dripping down his chest, and his back had been plastered very accurately with indigo. He was grateful for the plastic, sheetlike coverings the Doctor had provided them all with. Very useful inventions, they were. Dad lobbed a paintballoon and he ducked, feeling drips of cobalt ricochet off the wall. He looked around the room. It was nearly complete - and he wanted to leave some black space, to preserve the effect of a multicolored galaxy.

One more. If this balloon hit the wall, they were done. He picked a lavender from his and the Doctor's shared arsenal and nailed Father neatly in the back of the head.

Hamish giggled as Father's head whipped around, then ducked under the Doctor's sudden onslaught. "Not fair; we've run out of paintballs!"

"So have we!" the Doctor responded, gleefully chucking the rest of his ammunition at Father's head.

"That's kind of perfect timing, actually," said Hamish. "I was getting kind of done. We should leave so it can dry. I'm going to take a shower."

"That is a great idea," Dad agreed. "Oh! Hamish?"

"Hm?" Hamish turned around midway out the door.

"Happy birthday!"


	15. Age 14: Ambassador

On the second and fourth Saturdays of each month, at 11 am, Hamish woke up. This was unusual, as he had recently discovered the joys of staying up until ridiculous hours and as a result was rarely out of his room by noon on weekends. These two days were different, however, because these were the days when a very effective alarm, in the form of a TARDIS materializing in his bedroom, got Hamish up and ready to face the day.

Most of the time. The Doctor stepped beaming out of his box one cheery Saturday morning to find Hamish making discontented noises and shoving his head under a pillow.

"Hello there," hazarded the Time Lord.

"Before you ask, I'm not telling you how late I was up," came a muffled voice from beneath the pillow. "Need-to-know basis, you understand."

"Alright then." The Doctor frowned. "You are coming, though?"

"Yeah, of course. Er, do you mind…going downstairs or something? I need to change out of my pyjamas."

"Right, of course," the Doctor said, and retreated back into the TARDIS to get ready.

Soon – very soon actually, Hamish could really move when motivated – they were ready to embark on one of their bimonthly aliens-only adventures. They went on family adventures as well, naturally, but those were comparatively few and far between. "Alien education," the Doctor called it, but it was more fun than any official education could ever hope to be. Also, it was an excuse to wander around the galaxy without having to worry about Sherlock vehemently trying to understand everything they came across.

"Where to today?" Hamish asked, pressing a few buttons and smiling when Imagine Dragons' On Top of the World began playing through the console. The art of controlling the TARDIS came shockingly easy to him. It helped that she liked him, and they seemed to share the same taste in music.

"Your choice," said the Doctor.

"Brilliant! I, ah – " Hamish stopped short and looked up from the console as the message sank in. "What?"

"Where to today, Hamish William?" asked the Doctor, looking smug.

"I – er – I don't – " Hamish ran a hand through his hair and laughed. "I can't choose that on command!"

"No rush. We've got all the time in the universe." There was a small, indulgent smile on the Doctor's face.

"Okay. Um, I think – " Hamish closed his eyes and brought his hands up under his chin. After a few seconds he opened his eyes and turned back to the Doctor. "Betelgeusian rainforest?"

"You know the way." The Doctor stepped back and let Hamish move comfortably around the console. Teaching the Tenza how to fly had been a good decision. He hadn't gone this long without any crashes in centuries.

The TARDIS dematerialized smoothly and without error. Hamish stepped back from the console and folded his hands behind his head, watching the glowing column move up and down.

Suddenly the column began to hum in a pitch that seemed off and to the left of the customary one-dimensional musical scale. Its color faded to a color never seen on Earth and the TARDIS began to shudder. Hamish stumbled back. "What is that? What color is that, what's happening!"

The Doctor raced forward and ran his hands over the glass casing. "It's called viliatrice, it's the equivalent of a code mauve – go sit down and hold on tight, we're being summoned!"

 _"Who's summoning you?"_ Hamish yelled over the hum, which had become close to deafening.

The Doctor started to shout a response, but quickly gave up and clapped his hands over his ears.

Soon the TARDIS leveled out and with a final bump, they landed on a surface of some variation. The hum faded away, but the central cylinder remained bright viliatrice.

"Okay." Hamish's voice was high and trying not to sound panicked. "Where are we."

"I'm not sure," said the Doctor quietly. "Based on the landing patters, we could be on any one of 14 planets…but the hum and the viliatrice…" He approached the door slowly and motioned Hamish to follow. "I think…"

Hamish got up and walked over to the door with trepidation, standing just behind the Doctor. The TARDIS doors unlatched themselves – "oh, that's a good sign," the Doctor said under his breath – and swung open.

There was crystal around them, and they appeared to be in some sort of long room – that was all Hamish was able to absorb before the creature in front of him captured all his attention.

"This is Szher, Hamish," the Doctor murmured. "Ven is a xalain. Szher, this is Hamish, he's a Tenza."

Ven, that was an alien pronoun, evidently – the way humans assumed aliens shared their genders was ridiculous, and some aliens were rather offended by it and humanity as a whole. Hamish stared and hoped Szher was not one of them.

The xalain defied explanation nearly as much as viliatrice and two-dimensional humming. Dragon, Hamish supposed, would be the thing ven closest resembled, but ven was so much _more_. Standing at least 4 meters high, ven rested on two sets of limbs and another pair hung at vens sides like arms. Ven reminded him of a less-elongated centaur in that way, but with shimmery scales and glossy feathers and patches of what looked like vibrant living glass on vens legs and body. Vens long whiplike tail with a flat razor-sharp tip of glass coiled loosely around a leg. Vens neck was long and seemed prehensile, feathers around its sides and back and a long plate of flexible glass giving a view of vens digestive system. Vens head was narrow and draconic, but appeared to be covered with a combination of silk and down. Two scaly wings ending in a fringe of feathers folded neatly against vens back, and vens eyes were black with storm-gray pupils.

Szher watched Hamish take vens appearance in with patience in vens eyes. When Hamish had stared his fill, ven smiled and inclined vens head to the Doctor. "Welcome back to Mokire, ambassador. And you, Tenza, welcome to our planet. The Doctor referred to you as "he" – I take it that's your preferred pronoun for the moment?"

Hamish blinked. "Yes." Most aliens were too busy being offended at humans' butchering of their genders to ask Hamish his own.

"You are surprised by the question – you're human-formed, correct?"

"Yep. I know we can be insensitive about pronouns." Szher smiled again, and Hamish was internally relieved that he wouldn't have to puzzle through unfamiliar facial expressions this time. "I am a veni; I use ven and vens. I believe "ven" integrates your "he" and "him," or "she" and "her," or any of the like. Our genders are jaei, aiki and veni, with the pronouns structured similarly – less complicated than yours on Earth, certainly, but also less concrete. For instance, yesterday I was a jaei, although I tend mostly toward being a veni."

Hamish absorbed this and nodded. "For a species I don't think Earth's ever been in contact with, you know a lot about it."

"Simplistic, really. We merely intercepted the TARDIS in its path from Earth and absorbed all knowledge of the planet."

Hamish blinked and began to like Szher more. "Oh."

"Your being impressed lies in mere species differences in knowledge capacity. Now, ambassadors, this matter remains no less pressing than when we first summoned you. If you don't mind, follow me. Stick close behind, Hamish, our constructions aren't meant for human-formed eyes and you may feel disoriented."

"What's going on, Szher?" asked the Doctor as they followed ven down a long, crystalline hallway reminiscent of some beast's jeweled intestine. Hamish stared wide-eyed around him, absently deducing the planet's history and people while listening to the Doctor and Szher's conversation.

"It's the pyrle," Szher rumbled, vens voice taking on a distinct growly undertone that Hamish interpreted as agitation. "The stream flowing from the mountain has stopped. We are beginning to wither and gnarl without sustenance, and the Worren is silting much faster than jae had planned. If this keeps up, jae will deconstruct completely before a successor appears."

Hamish waited for someone to acknowledge that he hadn't understood three quarters of that statement.

"How long does the Worren have until jae goes completely to silt?" asked the Doctor concernedly.

He scowled and took matters into his own hands. "The fact that I have never been on this planet before does nothing to help the feeling of stupidity over here!"

Szher looked startled, Hamish thought, and he hoped he hadn't broken some essential societal code. But ven merely nudged the Doctor admonishingly (the Doctor staggered slightly but remained upright) and began to explain.

"We are led by the Worren, who hatches out of a shining cocoon and guides us for many of our years. Jaes time with us is nearly up, and when jaes time is completely gone jae turns to a sort of – your closest word is silt, so I assume that's what the TARDIS is translating it as. But we all depend on pyrle to sustain us – to prevent us from withering and the Worren from silting (we pass to the next stage of eternity differently, you understand) and the silver stream has dried up. The Worren says the cause is up the mountain, at the source, but the peak is encased in toxic helium clouds. To xalains. Toxic to xalains."

"You want us to climb the mountain," said Hamish.

"That is what I was trying to imply, yes. Subtlety is not my forte, at least not human subtlety."

"You do understand I'm plagued with crippling acrophobia?"

"Yes." There was an awkward pause. "The first step is to consult the Worren, down at the end of this hall. Ambassador – the mountain is mostly hollow, I do not foresee much difficulty, if I understand acrophobia correctly. So – you are a Tenza?"

Hamish found himself warming up to Szher. It was usually hit-or-miss with other nonhumans, but Szher was fascinating, strangely beautiful, and warm and open without being abrasive. Ven explained how Tenzas were revered in xalain society for their dual-species nature and special abilities, and exclaimed over Hamish's moderate displays of psyke and pyro. It was strange to feel so accepted. Earth was restrictively conservative on the subject of aliens.

The crystalline hallway did strange things to Hamish's vision, and he couldn't tell if the Worren's chamber was closer or farther away than the time it took to reach would suggest. Inside the colors were muted and a warm, musty scent hung in the air. The Worren jaeself rested on a small platform – about a meter square – its intricate paint designs dulled and dusty with age, suspended from the vaultlike ceiling.

"Jae filled the room when I was here last," the Doctor murmured to Hamish, who nodded silently. The dimness and the way their shoes clicked echoingly on the glass floor created a cathedral-like atmosphere that neither was eager to disturb.

"Szher, my kindling! Ambassadors revered! I hear unfamiliar footsteps, and unless you are offworlders come to assassinate me in my state of weakness – a pointless action, I assure you – I assume my dignitary Szher is with you. Unless you are holding him captive? I would provide a ransom without hesitation, but our only wealth has stopped flowing from above. Excuse my ramblings – Szher, it is you, correct? I no longer have the luxury of peripheral vision, if you recall."

Except, apparently, the Worren jaeself.

"Of course it is us, Worren," Szher replied, gliding soundlessly over to the platform. "Ambassadors Doctor and Hamish, one Time Lord and one Tenza."

"Tenza!" the Worren exclaimed. "How pleasant! Tell them to come over already, do."

Szher turned vens head around 180 degrees ( _it_ is _prehensile_ , thought Hamish), and gave a small flap of vens wings which Hamish interpreted as a shrug. Hamish and the Doctor clicked over to the platform.

The Worren was as different from the marvelous veni beside jae as dust was from crystal. While Szher was all sharp edges and cleanly chiseled lines, the Worren's blue-gray sludge of a body washed around the edges of the platform, patches of oilslick color casting stained-glass fractals on the walls and ceiling. Jaes only feature was a low mound of a face, high draconic cheekbones and reptilian angles blurred around the edges. The Doctor looked shaken.

"This is a natural process of aging, Ambassador," said the Worren, somewhat pointedly. "At this point, my physical self has deteriorated too far for there to be any point in concerning myself with it, forcing me to turn my attention to those I'll be leaving behind. Now Szher, you know you did not have to seek my attention first, remember? You can't be so dependent on me, kindling. The new Worren will need your help more than you will need theirs."

"You seem confident that a new Worren will appear before it's…too late," said Szher, uncharacteristically subdued.

"Yes, well, if that doesn't happen, what is the point in speaking at all? Best to prepare as if it will happen, because there aren't many measures we can take if it won't. But, ambassadors – we do really need to take action. If you don't climb the mountain and find the stream's blockage, I will silt before a new Worren appears. Understand this is not meant as blackmail, but simply facts. If you wish to leave us to our own devices, we will not stop you. _I_ will not, anyway – some of our younger and brasher xalains may try; it's the species preservation instinct at work. I do ask you, though – please?"

The Doctor swallowed. "Well, when you put it that way, I can't really say no, can I?"

The Worren, being unable to nod, made a small burble of agreement. "I acknowledge that I am being rather manipulative at the moment. But understand – it's that species preservation instinct again."

"Of course." The Doctor nodded. "I'm going. Hamish, you don't have to come. Mountains, I know."

Hamish's mind had been racing furiously. "I appreciate the sentiment that my comfort is more important than the ability to remove a life-threatening blockage, Doctor, but Szher said the mountain was hollow – we can climb up the inside…I'm coming too." If the pyrle stream was big enough at its mouth to support an entire community of massive aliens, it had to be no small trickle at the source, and anything big enough to cut that off probably wouldn't be movable with the Doctor's bare hands. And like helium was toxic to xalains, so might pyrle be toxic to humans or Time Lords – his psyke would be the best way to remove the blockage.

Szher looked like ven was about to say something, but the Worren cut ven off with a "Go, kindling." Ven nodded tersely, then turned and silently marched out of the room. Hamish and the Doctor exchanged glances and followed.

They tracked Szher through what seemed like miles of passages, but was most likely not. Not being built to accommodate humanoids, the corridors weren't bound by uniform flatness, instead twisting up and around and sometimes nearly vertical. Szher showed no inclination to help the two and traversed the snaking halls easily, leaving the Doctor and Hamish to scramble behind. Szher moved quickly and they lost him once or twice, but were always able to find another xalain who pointed them kindly in the right direction.

Finally they came to the end of the Worren's warren of spiraling tunnels and emerged blinking into the pale, yellow-green sunlight, where Szher, and the mountain, were waiting.

The mountain curved around and up into the sky, like an exaggeratedly curled ram's horn. Its peak was impaled in a fluffy cloudmass of helium. Hamish added _clouds form only around mountains_ to his mental list of things that differed from Earth or could be suspicious. He had often noted that trouble seemed to follow the Doctor from star to star like a lost puppy, and such a list tended to come in handy.

They followed Szher through the stiff, bristly flora that covered the ground in a thick layer and almost supported Hamish's weight, alongside a long, deep channel running from the castle to the mountain. Hamish tugged mentally at a sapphire sapling growing out of the side of the riverbed, and was surprised when it curled away from his psychic touch like a mimosa plant.

Szher was nowhere near inclined to talk to or even look at Hamish or the Doctor; an unanticipated change that left Hamish feeling like he'd messed up somehow, which he supposed was not the case but instead fell into the broad category of "alien things." (He needed a better name for this category – far too generalized. He'd been cleaning out his mind castle lately – "alien things" was now the only category to end in that particular word, for no reason other than the word that preceded it. "Thing" often came in very handy when describing, well, a _thing_ that pronounceable languages weren't up to describing.)

It was a bad habit, feeling that things were his fault when they consistently and logically were not, probably rising from his tendency to overthink and newfound status as scapegoat in the world of school. His was an odd position (his brain switched gears abruptly), what with his natural teacher's-pet tendencies as well as his inability to form interesting friendships (as there were no interesting people to form them with; and besides, he wouldn't know where to start) and subsequent isolation. Along with his near-complete lack of hand-eye coordination (without the help of obvious psyke), this placed him in an environment that praised him when the teacher was looking and reviled him when they were not. This, of course, could begin to cause problems with…cheerfully, his thoughts devolved into the beginnings of a good ramble.

Emotions were hard. Hamish coped by psychologizing himself.

While he had been occupied in his head, the mountain had managed to sneak up on them. The terrain had changed to rough and sandy, and chunks of solid pyrle littered the way. Hamish looked at one until it drifted up to eye level, his hands not leaving the pockets of his jacket. Solidified liquid – but not frozen, _compressed_ inside the mountain. Fascinating.

Hamish would have likened the channel's entry into the mountain to a gaping maw, but for the lack of any sort of stala, be it of the -gmite or -ctite variety. And that was such an overused comparison, anyway. It wasn't all that gaping, either, he pondered, closing his eyes and sliding down into the streambed. Only about tall enough for him to walk through.

"It widens on the inside. There are ledges for walking on either side that I would urge you to put use to." Szher's voice was oddly low-pitched and made Hamish's ears buzz. Little prismatic light flecks that hadn't been there before bounced around vens insides. Ven inclined vens head. "Best of luck, ambassadors," ven rumbled without making eye contact.

Szher was right, it did widen on the inside. The ledges were wide enough for them to share one, Hamish taking the side furthest from the channel's edge. The tunnel was lit by…something. Right?

After five minutes of walking it became apparent that the tunnel was, in fact, lit by something that was not the light from its mouth below. "How can we see?" Hamish asked. The Doctor just shrugged.

_Alien Thing _, Hamish thought resignedly.__

__The tunnel didn't echo like a tunnel should. It captured sound instead, muffling it. This made it unnerving to talk. As a result, Hamish and the Doctor stayed mostly silent._ _

__"How far is it to the top, d'you think?" asked Hamish after a couple minutes of silence._ _

__"Few miles. Forty minutes' walk, I'd think."_ _

__Hamish kicked a pyrle chunk into the channel. The silence seemed more oppressive than peaceful. It was unnerving._ _

__"If Szher was a human, ven would have been crying," said the Doctor suddenly. "Low voice, internal lights, social isolation – ven loves the Worren. Ven is sad, and afraid. It was nothing you did."_ _

__The quiet swallowed his words, but they reached Hamish's ears first. He didn't reply._ _

__For the most part the walk was dull in its sheer monotony – the monotony of their surroundings, the uniformly muffled scuffs of their shoes, the dim unchanging light. It was a harsh contrast with the vibrant palace below – but then, this place was not built for the appreciation of living beings._ _

__But it was the inside of a mountain, and nature rarely bothers with perfection when creating such things. There was one place where the wall of the tunnel had cracked and fallen away and cold, helium-filled wind rippled around them. After recovering from a minor panic attack Hamish had to walk down inside the channel. The reasons this climb was a very, very bad idea resurfaced enthusiastically from the cellars of his mind castle, and he tried to focus on pushing them back – the were already more than halfway to the top of the mountain; too late to back out now._ _

__Ten minutes later, the channel ended abruptly in a curved, shiny, silver-white mass of solid pyrle. Hamish stared up at it, the Doctor stared down – despite its iridescence, they couldn't see their reflections staring back. It was glowing slightly from within, but not enough to light the whole tunnel._ _

__Hamish scrambled up the dry banks of the stream, wiping his hands on his jeans and deliberately not looking back down. "So."_ _

__It didn't sound like his voice. It was tinny, and squeaky, and insignificant. Hamish covered his mouth in embarrassment. Of course, he knew the helium would affect his voice, but he hadn't imagined it this warped._ _

__The Doctor ignored this, to his credit, and began to sonic up and down the wall. The mechanical whirr was unexpectedly normal and comforting. As the Doctor moved the light over a patch of wall about four feet off the ground, a small avalanche of rocks dislodged and rained down on his head._ _

__"Ah!" he exclaimed squeakily. "Found a thing."_ _

__The thing in question was a tunnel, not unlike the one they were currently standing in. A smaller tunnel, of course. An under-tunnel, if you will. The Doctor, characteristically, hoisted himself up and was gone. Hamish, equally characteristically, hesitated for some seconds before following suit._ _

__A blast of cold air greeted him the moment as he was fully inside, and he shivered, wishing for layers. The interior of the mountain hadn't been cold before – another Alien Thing, he had thought, or just good insulation. But this smaller tunnel was freezing._ _

__It wasn't quite tall enough to stand up in, and too sloped to crawl, so he and the Doctor were forced to scoot awkwardly downward to…wherever this led. Hopefully the source of the blockage, because they were out of other options. The tunnel was dim, and rocky, and slightly damp; but it smelled cold and clean, like the air on a quiet gray day before a snow._ _

__They scooted along for a little while, and gradually Hamish became aware of a light at the end of the tunnel. Not a metaphorical one, he thought dryly to himself, which was lucky because that often symbolized death, and he was rather reluctant to die just yet. This one was a bright white, the same white as the sphere of pyrle blocking the flow, its shine obscured by the twists of the passage. The light grew brighter, and brighter, until it filled the tunnel, and the Doctor slid down from its mouth and let out a long, comically high-pitched whistle._ _

__Hamish would have complained at him for being so clichéd, but he was too busy being transfixed by what lay at the end of the path._ _

__The tunnel dropped off sheerly into a huge, circular room, with smooth, shining white walls and a floor that resembled mother-of-pearl. They were at the top of the mountain, there was not doubt about that, but the peak was missing from some long-ago cataclysm. Pale sunlight reflected off the walls, making the room painfully bright, and frigid wind whipped relentlessly at the duo's faces._ _

__In the very center and taking up much of the space was a vast white sphere of pyrle. The floor dipped down around it, and one side was pressed against the wall. This was obviously the blockade._ _

__Hamish let out a breath, just before noticing he'd been holding it. The air flowed from his mouth in a billowing cloud. He slid down into the room – feet slipping slightly on the smooth pyrle – and followed the Doctor to the center._ _

__There was a soft metallic shriek, a flash of viliatrice, a pop and a puff of smoke, and the Doctor was snuffing out the tip of his screwdriver on his jacket. "Doesn't like the vibrations, y'see," he explained knowledgeably, tucking the screwdriver back in his pocket. "It wants you. Wants you to melt it."_ _

__Hamish blinked. "It?"_ _

__"Yeah. If you melt the inside it should let the shell around it liquefy."_ _

___"It."_ _ _

__The Doctor adjusted his jacket. "Yeah."_ _

__"I'd like to know what sort of _it_ I'm unfreezing. Y'know. If that's okay." Hamish could be a master of deadpan sarcasm when he wanted to be._ _

__"Nothing lethal. Promise."_ _

__Hamish shrugged, adjusted his footing and held out his hands._ _

__Heat projection was hard, far harder than channeling it through his hands, but it could be done. He narrowed his eyes to slits – it worked the best when his eyes were closed, but then he couldn't direct it well – and sent a ribbon of heat worming underneath the sphere. Now this part was the most difficult, as he willed the heat through the pyrle and to the center 30 feet off the ground…he was almost there, his eyes slipping closed unconsciously, and in that not-quite-black there was an almost-shape, it looked like a... _dragon_ , all curled up in itself –_ _

__what._ _

__Hamish lost the heat immediately. Concentrating enough to keep hold of his pyro was _hard_. He gasped and stumbled back, the Doctor catching him with a reassuring hand around his back. "That was amazing. Truly. Look what you did."_ _

__There was a sound at the edge of his awareness. A trickling, a dripping, growing louder by the second. The sphere was shrinking, and the walls were running. The ground was quickly becoming a puddle. Pyrle flowed down the room's sloping floor to the mouth of the channel, pooling around the still-solid globe, which was becoming smaller every second. It shrank faster, and the dripping grew louder until it became the sound of a true river, and Hamish hoped pyrle washed out of shoes because his were immersed._ _

__And then it was done. The shining walls were gone, the sphere had dissolved, and the shimmering chamber was now plain, dull rock._ _

__"Hello," said the dragon hatchling, standing where the center of the ball had been. It paused to lick pyrle off its nose with a long reptilian tongue. "Tenza."_ _

__Hamish's brow furrowed. Its shape was the same as the flash of dragon silhouette he'd seen inside the sphere. "Was that…?"_ _

__"My egg, yes." The dragon cocked its head to one side. "Am Worren. Am…aiki? I think. Tenza."_ _

__Aik was octopedal, unlike the other xalains, with large orange eyes and scales glittering with some unknown color. Large fur tufts sprouted from the end of each ear and instead of horns, aik sported two long, flexible tendrils. Aik had no tail. "Want go down mountain?" aik offered._ _

__At those words Hamish's stomach dropped. He had almost managed to forget just how high in the air he was, what with the tunnel and the pyrle and the pyro and the Worren, but now his distance from the comfortable ground was all too obvious._ _

__The Doctor saw this, of course. And the Worren would have, too, if aik was familiar with human facial expression. Hamish wondered numbly if aik was imprinting on them, and if that was a good thing._ _

__"Yes, let's get down from here. The sooner the better, if you ask me. But…any possibility of not going down the outside?" asked the Doctor. "Acrophobia, you know. Very inconveniencing."_ _

__"Of course," said the Worren, in aik's clear childlike voice, and reality shifted around them._ _

__******************************_ _

__The past hour or so had been stressful for Szher. Ven had gotten upset and strode off after the ambassadors entered the mountain, but eventually discovered that ven wasn't ready to return to the palace and the silting Worren, either. So ven had turned and begun to pace outside the dry streambed, waiting. For the ambassadors, for pyrle, for news of the Worren's death, ven wasn't sure._ _

__Pyrle came first, and the other two came later. Ven hadn't heard it coming at all – xalain senses were less sensitive than human ones – so the massive wash of silver caught ven completely by surprise. Ven spun around, transfixed, staring at the river, before rushing forward and dipping a claw in the silver. They had done it. The ambassadors had succeeded! The blockage was gone, the new Worren was hatched, and the life cycle of the species could continue._ _

__"Szher!" a voice shouted, from where there definitely was not a voice before. Ven turned to see both ambassadors and a small, chalk-white Worren standing just a few feet away._ _

__"The caretaker? Is it you?" the young Worren asked. Aik trotted over and rubbed against Szher's leg, familiarizing aikself with vens scent and drawing all of Szher's internal lights to aik. "The other is gone, caretaker-Szher," aik confided. "I feel I am alone, inside me."_ _

__Szher felt a pang of grief. Ven knew it was coming, of course. Two Worrens together could never survive for long, and ven was already beginning to feel the pull of this young one's power. Ven didn't doubt that it had been this pull that had drawn the spinal spark of life from the old Worren's body, now only a puddle of silt. But…this young one's insistent subvocal cries of "caretaker, caretaker" helped to drown the sorrow out. Yes, ven thought, reaching out to brush a drop of pyrle off the new Worren's back. Ven would accept the role of the aiki's caretaker._ _

__"Come along, Worren." The name still felt odd to use when referring to this tiny, excited marshmallow of a thing. "And ambassadors, if you would return with us to the palace? I believe your ship is still there."_ _

__One of vens first official duties as a caretaker was to explain what had just taken place to the ambassadors. And it was a long walk back to the palace – may as well begin now._ _

__"Every five greatcycles – ah – " Ven broke off to pry the Worren's teeth out of vens tail. "Every five greatcycles, I believe about 3000 years for humans, our Worren begins to silt. The life energy holding them together flows out through the ground and into the underwater pyrle reservoirs. Eventually, this energy circulates to the top of the mountain, where it sticks to the walls and floor and the source of the pyrle river. In time, enough energy accumulates to form a cocoon, pulling the pyrle to itself until it is large enough to block the stream, and begins to incubate. This is why ambassadors, especially pyrokinetic ones, are held in such high regard – without their aid, our species would not survive past five greatcycles, as only they can hatch the egg and unblock the pyrle before the Worren silts fully."_ _

__"So…you knew." Hamish looks vaguely accusing, but mostly tired. "You knew that we'd really be going up there for the new Worren, and you didn't bother to tell us."_ _

__"I do understand your consternation, ambassador, but truly, what good would it have done? You knew that the old Worren was silting, and that the pyrle had stopped. I would have had to explain our entire ecological system, and as you recall, time was of the essence."_ _

__Hamish hummed crossly and stared into the river._ _

__The Worren clambered up onto Szher's back and stayed there until they were back at the palace. A crowd of xalains were waiting by the entrance, looking like so many reptilian meerkats all peering toward the horizon._ _

__After that it was very loud._ _

__All of the xalains simultaneously rushed to the Worren and Szher, eager to know just what their ambassadors had brought back along with their pyrle. Their internal lights were bright and flickering excitedly, so much that they hurt to look at. Hamish winced and glanced at the Doctor for direction._ _

__"They'll forget about us now – they don't mean to, they'd be perfectly polite if not for the Worren. It's one of their customs that differs from our own – nothing, unequivocally nothing, is more important than any matters pertaining to the Worren. They'll understand if we leave now." And besides, the Doctor noticed, Hamish was quickly running out of energy. That display of pyro had sapped his strength alarmingly._ _

__"Okay, good. Let's go." Hamish didn't bother to keep the relief out of his voice. "I think we should get lunch before we go back home?"_ _

__"Of course. Did you have anywhere in particular in mind?"_ _

__Hamish shrugged. "There was that place on the asteroid orbiting Alpha Centauri sometime in like 3058, I think."_ _

__"The abandoned Cyberman lair? Have I ever told you, I've been there when it wasn't quite abandoned yet."_ _

__"No."_ _

__"Well." The Doctor clapped his hands together. "I'll tell you about it while we try and find the TARDIS, yeah? Now, where exactly did we leave that…"_ _

__As they trotted through the crystalline coils of the now-abandoned palace, Hamish listened to the Doctor's story with one ear. His mind drifted back to that silhouette he had seen – with his eyes _closed_ – as he was thawing the pyrle. Was it the Worren communicating with him telepathically, or even another developing ability? He'd tell the Doctor about it over lunch, he decided._ _


End file.
